Bva Decisions

[bigoc]

Is it helpful to include board of veteran appeals decisions in a claim if they are similar in nature to your claim?  Of course they would be the granted type and not a denial.

[Ricky]

BVA decisions are excellent reference material - for you not the VA. By studing BVA decision one gains a somewhat inside view of why the VA denies or grants a benefit.

If the appeals you study are closely related to your claim they can and will assist you in formulating your arguments for the grant of your claim. I would not reference them or attach pages upon pages of previous decisions in hopes that the rater will read them and use the same rationale to grant your claim. He/she does not have the time to do so.

[broncovet]

IMHO I do not recommend using BVA decisions UNLESS you have thoroughly researched, in this order, SUPREME COURT DECISIONS, Federal Court Decisions, and CAVC decisions, especially "precidential" decisions. If none of these cases addresses the issue, then you can look at the BVA decisions. The courts have a definite hierarchy just like the military, and whenever you can "get it from the top", you are better off.

In other words, you are going to have a stronger arguement citing what a federal court judge says, than you are at citing what your uncle Charlie thinks. A BVA decision is only a little bit better than what your Uncle Charlie thinks, but a federal court case, that has not been overturned by the Supreme court, is pretty much law.

To answer the question, CAVC stands for "Court of Veterans Claims", which is a court to decide Veterans benefit claims set up by congress. The "pecking order" goes like this, starting at the bottom:

0. The Veteran

1. dirt

2. citizens who are not Veterans

3. Regional Office decisions

4. DRO (Decision Review Officer decision, which is optional)

5. Board of Veterans Appeals,

6 CAVC

7. Federal Court

8. Supreme Court

9. VA Employee Executives who interpret, that is, manipulate, the above.

Edited October 11, 2009 by broncovet

[Berta]

If a BVA decision involves an interpretation of law or some legal point-it could possibly help a claim.

An example is- VA says my accrued benefits claim is pending.To support that claim I sent in portions of the Nehmer Agent Orange court order and portions of a BVA decision explaining how Nehmer determines accrued benefits.

I sent in 4 BVA decisions and OGC pres op to support my CUE claims. I also sent in M21-1 and the exact part of M21-1 that showed they committed CUE.

BUT on medical issues the VA will be quick to say that a decision involving another vet's disability is not relevant to your disability.

BVA decisions have a wealth of info in them,often names or initials of IMO docs who favorably opined on the disability, and even contain key points that could be critical factors if the vet expanded on them.

I recently posted a decision from a AO Guam vet who had used a BVA decision as evidence (probably the other BVA AO Guam award)but this vet had considerable other evidence as well.He might have served exactly the same time,unit, and place in Guam where the other AO Guam vet served-and had proved exposure to Agent Orange.In a case like that the BVA decision would be very relevant.

[Hoppy]

If you are at a lose as to how to develop the medical evidence pay attention to the way the medical reports are written on claims that win. Have your doctors write reports that mirror the winning reports. Take the winning decision to your doctor and let him read it. It might get a doctor motivated to help. My experience most recently is that doctors do not know what they need to put in a report that will help.