Court Case On Secret V.a. Rules

[deltaj]

Could someone post a link to U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit case entitled 2008-7076 Order of the Purple Heart and National Veterans Legal Services Program v. Secretary of Veterans Affairs? This case was decided September 10, 2009. It concerns V.A.'s secret internal rules permitting review of a decision by the C & P Director and reduction of a claimant's award without notice to the claimant or the claimant's representative if an award is $250,000 or more or the effective date is more than 8 years ago. What a creepy, crooked practice. Folks, if you are a V.A. claimant you leave your Constitutional rights to due process of law at the door as you enter the V.A.

Edited September 29, 2009 by deltaj

[broncovet]

James

No offense to you personally, but this is often our complaint with the VA. The court case is decided, and regulations are changed. No one bothers to tell the employees about the change, so they keep right on doing it the "old" (now illegal) way. They do that because they can. There is no penalty to the VA employee manager for violating any rules, the Veteran must pay the penalty through additional delays.

In this instance, a Veteran who is owed a big retro, $250,000 each day delay costs the Veteran $27.39. That is if the Veteran put his money out at a modest 4% interest, it would earn $10,000 per year, or $27.39 per day. Each month of delay cheats the Veteran out of $833. Remember, if the Veteran cant pay his copayments he is charged interest by the VA, and almost every one else also charges him interest also when he cant pay, and, of course, he cant when the VA holds onto his retro while they "accuracy check" it.

I have said this before, this "accuracy check" ONLY on large retros does not prevent fraud, it makes another loophole for fraud. It is pretty easy to not get caught by only doing fraud that amounts to less than the minimum, that is, if they only accuracy check 250k cases, then the frauds will do $200k frauds that will escape detection.

If the VA did not pay your salary for 8 years, due to "paperwork snafus" and you were loyal enough to keep working for them those 8 years, while watching your home, and possessions be pawned so you could survive, would you want to be investigated when you finally collected your money that you were owed all those years?

Edited October 27, 2009 by broncovet

[Berta]

Just to add- although I made this point before many times-

If any vet has a mental disability and obtains an IMO- the vet should ask the IMO doctor to state they are competent.

A big stall tactic for VA has been -when the mentally disabled veteran gets large award- to propose to declare them incompetent.

This does protect many veterans. I know a bi polar veteran who would have spent his retro in a weekend- it was around 250,000 bucks- he was the one I mentioned here when he won-who wanted to take me out to lunch for helping him-

lunch in Ireland-

It took many months for VA to interview his wife and she became his payee.

Still- this proposal of incompetency often has no merit at all-

if the vet was already receiving SC comp and thus competent enough to handle their prior SC award, why should they suddenly be deemed incompetent just because the VA got off its butt and finally awarded them what they obviously should have been receiving for years.

I wish we could propose that some VA employees are incompetent. :D

[Pete53]

Berta:

Thanks that is a very important tip on IMO's. Make sure that the Doc says you are competent to handle your money

[john999]

James

Is the VA going to put you up against a wall and shoot you as a traitor? I hope you don't get too offended by what you read on this site. You know everyone here has had their ass burned by the VA claims process. All it takes is for a vet to get one really bad experience with the VA, and that shades their perspective for life. It can't be overcome by things that come later. If the claims process was speedy and accurate there would not be this hostility. Jibs at the VA are not meant for you personally. We rail at the system and not at individuals so much unless we know for sure some person did something wrong.

[Pete53]

I go out of my way to be polite and friendly to all I deal with at VA. For me it has paid off and I have been much more relaxed because of it.

[JamesBreckenridge]

Hah! I hope they don't stand me against a wall, or fire me for fear that I might "mislead and confuse the veteran." I figure as long as I just share my perspective and experience with the claims process, that it'll be okay. Well, that and keeping my identity secret, and saying as little as possible.

I know a lot of vets have pretty negative feelings towards the VA. I don't blame them, and I understand why that is, and I don't take it personally.