E Mails From Hadit Vets On Claims

[Guest Berta]

I just finished up some emails from my vets- Two of them WON!!!!!

I think both are hadit vets here-

I say won but there is more to come- both decisions should be NOdded.

I am unable to respond to any more emails regarding responses and NODs etc to individual claims issues

at this time -from this board.

The hadit board is the best place to get excellent advice on your claim and the responses to your questions here will help many others.

My recent $96,000 plus CUE retro -last week- vet ( on top of the real big claim he won last year )-just emailed me he is coming this way-will be here in a few hours-

I did not expect that- I already sent him his CUE to file on 1981 decision.

I better see what is in the ice box. Berta

[SCIDVET]

Berta:

Thanks for the help you give here at Hadit. I was here last christmas, and you helped a lot, for me to summarize, narrow down, my BVA claim. From 70 points relating to the 7 relevant issues and 300 pieces of evidence, I managed to sharpen, clarify, narrow, and (I think) strengthen the claim into 6 pages, 30 points, and 30 sets of pertinent evidence, all supporting the main seven issues via the 30 points.

I had the hardest time with the organizational stuff- in other words, if I were a secretary who knew how to file, gather, and a legal assistant who knew how to collate, collect, and of course, clearly create a legal claim, it wouldnt be nearly so hard.

How I did it might be useful to someone: I wrote, rewrote, the main points, summarizing, deleting, over 15 editions. Then I went through the (couple vertical feet) of records, and just grabbed the stuff that related to the period of time in question FIRST.

Then I sifted through THAT 5 inches of documents for the pages most clearly supporting my claim. Then, finally, I layed out all the pages into piles (all up and down my hallway, on the floor) each pile designated as supporting one of the 30 parts of the 7 main points.

Using post-its to hold my place, I was able to ONLY THEN insert "See attachment #1" after each of the 30 points in the six page pleading document. Also, almost as an after thought, I put in at each of the 7 main points the applicable laws I could find in the CFR that related to the argument I was making with the evidence at hand.

It all seems very persuasive! (but one never really knows)

Some people came over, a little too late to help, and were very impressed, and said (roughly) they couldnt imagine a more thorough and clear statement about such a complicated set of issues. Also some of them were witnesses who gave some statements in support of claim, one even had photographic evidence from the mid 80's of my efforts to survive. (I was dumbfounded and so grateful!)

I will be sure to let you know if I am successful, like the other vets you mention in this post.

Semper Fi, Now the battle is for you, us, and I.

SCIDvet aka Mike

I just finished up some emails from my vets- Two of them WON!!!!!

I think both are hadit vets here-

I say won but there is more to come- both decisions should be NOdded.

I am unable to respond to any more emails regarding responses and NODs etc to individual claims issues

at this time -from this board.

The hadit board is the best place to get excellent advice on your claim and the responses to your questions here will help many others.

My recent $96,000 plus CUE retro -last week- vet ( on top of the real big claim he won last year )-just emailed me he is coming this way-will be here in a few hours-

I did not expect that- I already sent him his CUE to file on 1981 decision.

I better see what is in the ice box. Berta

[Berta]

Mike- your post here will help others-

Complex and numerous issues can overwhelm us. I know that feeling well myself-

but getting organized seems to reduce the stress a lot.

The VA is skimming over our claims-they have to put a time period into their products codes-too much time on a claim means they aren't producing enough work-

I helped a vet here who had a 32 page claim-we reduced it to 2 pages- but two very attention getting pages.

stated the issues

referred to the evidence in the SMRs

added a buddy statement

told them what she wanted.

I dont know the result yet.

The 32 pages I told her to save- it had been very helpful to her to get a lot off her chest and within all that- were other points of evidence she could focus on-if needed. This long claim helped remind her of potenial witnesses -stuff like that. But I knew they would deny right off the bat-the 32 page claim-and not even read it-

I have dozens and dozens of files and VA related things-here- almost 20 years of dealing with them-

it can be miserable looking for a specific document and the more we look sometimes- it could be right there but we miss it-organization helps so much.

Pictures can be worth many words.

I have helped vets put pictures onto their very first statements to the VA(after filing the 21-526)One was extremely gruesome- a surgical VA screw-up.

I did it myself with autopsy photos of a heart right on the first page of the statement for my claim.

You got statements from others for your claim- this can be excellent evidence-

Have you gotten a claim status from VA yet?

Semper Fi to you too Marine! Berta

Edited April 7, 2006 by Berta

[john999]

Mike

Did you present all that good evidence to the VARO? I imagine they just ignored the evidence they did not want to consider. They either slant or ignore evidence but they must at least list it. Who ever said this process was non-adversarial?

[Alex]

Berta –

You are right in advocating that veterans boil down their claims file to the minimum necessary to prevail. Although they are supposed to so, you cannot realistically expect VA to go through every document in the file (like those for colds or sore throats) to find the gold. Other you end up like hapless Tom Kelly here, who put into one of his many boxes a statement that his claimed condition interfered with his water-skiing skills, which VA used to jump all over him.

You can also use a yellow highlighter pen to pick out the choice words but use some restraint in this.

Alex

[Pete53]

Berta –

You are right in advocating that veterans boil down their claims file to the minimum necessary to prevail. Although they are supposed to so, you cannot realistically expect VA to go through every document in the file (like those for colds or sore throats) to find the gold. Other you end up like hapless Tom Kelly here, who put into one of his many boxes a statement that his claimed condition interfered with his water-skiing skills, which VA used to jump all over him.

You can also use a yellow highlighter pen to pick out the choice words but use some restraint in this.

Alex

Alex gave me that advice many years ago and it served me well. I went for 30% to 100%.