Were You Rated By The Criteria?

[broncovet]

The CAVC case, Jones vs Shinseki, is instructive.

http://www.veteranslawlibrary.com/files/CAVC_cases/2012/Jones_11-2704.pdf

This Veteran complained that the Board did not rate him strictly by the criteria. The CAVC stated it plainly:

As this Court has made clear, "[t]he Board's consideration of factors which arewhollyoutside

the rating criteria provided by the regulations is error as a matter of law."

This comes very close to saying that, when the VA rates the Veteran OTHER than by the specified criteria, it is CUE.

In this case, the Veteran won a remand, because the VA considered the effects of the meds he was on, when the rating criteria did not specify whether the Veteran should be rated on symptoms with OR without medication.

If you have been recently denied, then you might look over the rating criteria, and then re read your decision to see if the VA used non criteria.

I know for a fact the VA does just that. They denied my hearing loss ten years ago because it had been a long time since I was in service. The length of time since service is not one of the criteria for rating hearing impairments.