Supreme Court To Decide Whether To Hear Vets Case

[broncovet]

Early next year, the Supreme Court will decide whether to hear this Vets case:

http://atwar.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/20/a-case-that-could-unhinge-a-veterans-benefits-hamster-wheel/

This would appear to be a good thing for Vets:

The CAVC would be able to make factual determinations and not just remands. This would appear to be Congress intent.

[john999]

BVA employees and judges would lose jobs. Even people at the VARO would lose their jobs. Both BVA and CAVC remand most of their cases. Hell, most BVA appeals sit for a year waiting to be certified to the BVA and then another year or two to be heard. Then if you want to go to CAVC it takes a year just to get there and a year to do all the back and forth. Then the case must be assigned a judge and he must make a decision to remand and that takes a year at least. In the meantime people who get paid are moving cases around and losing things. This means employment for VA workers and misery for the rest of us.

The famouse Cushman CUE claim started sometime in the 90's I believe and is on remand to the BVA right now after going to Federal Court and back to CAVC. He is 100% now but was unable to work since the 1980's when his claim was mishandled by a VARO worker. We consider him a big winner since his case established that vet's have a property right(I think) in their own claims. He is in his 60's and still waiting for retro as far as I know. I wonder how long my lawyer will stick with me since it has been 6 years since he filed his first brief in my CUE? He said if he could not win my CUE he would never do one again because it was so obvious.....heh, heh. He had only really worked SSD claims for 15 years and did not fully appreciate the VA until he got a copy of my file and found other vet's stuff in my file and saw what a mess a 35 year old file could look like at the VA. We do need vets and vet lawyers to lead the way for the next generation. We have seen the promised land, but we might not get there with you.

John

[GuaymasJim]

I believe we have a better than 50/50 chance of this case being heard by the Supremes. My belief is based on this 2010 exchange during an unrelated case copied below. After Citizens United, I am not Chief Justice Robert's strongest supporter, but I do consider him honest and intelligent. Congress is incapable of resolving the problems with the VA. They have proven this time and time again. Congress complains, the VA lies, and things just keep getting worse. All the improvements we have seen, and they are scant, have come from the courts. Having the case heard doesn't guarantee that it will be decided in our favor, but we can hope.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

The speakers in the excerpt below are U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice William Roberts and U.S. Solicitor General Anthony Yang. The Solicitor General is, generally speaking, the government’s attorney and advocate before the United States Supreme Court.

When Assistant to the Solicitor General Anthony Yang got up for his rebuttal in the case, Roberts interrupted him and the exchange went like this:

ROBERTS: Counsel do you — do you dispute your friend’s statement that 42 percent of the time in Social Security cases the government’s position is unjustified, and 70 percent of the time in veterans’ cases?

YANG: Well, I think that reflects the stakes often, Your Honor. Oftentimes the government does not contest, for instance, the $2,000 EAJA award and because it’s the government, has to –

ROBERTS: So whenever it really makes a difference, 70 percent of the time the government’s position is substantially unjustified?

YANG: In cases in the VA context, the number’s not quite that large, but is a substantial number of cases at the court of appeals –

ROBERTS: What number would you accept?

YANG: It was, I believe in the order of either 50 or maybe slightly more than 50 percent. It might be 60. But the number is substantial that you get a reversal, and in almost all of those cases EAJA –

ROBERTS: Well that’s really startling, isn’t it? In litigating with veterans, the government more often than not takes a position that is substantially unjustified?

YANG: It is an unfortunate number, Your Honor. And it is — it’s accurate.

Here is a link to the full article on law.com: http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1202444391590

[broncovet]

A "remand" is synomomous for a "delay". There is no winner. Vets deserve a REAL decision and not a "remand". That is what this is all about.

About a third of cases are "remanded".

[Capt.]

Hello Jim,,,,,,,

You know it should make all Veterans sick to their stomach to see the attitude of Mr. Yang defending VAs position on something like this. How can Mr. Yang and many other people in the VA and the Justice Dept. sleep at night knowing what they do and say are basically against logical and sound minds.

I believe Justice Roberts is kinda in a state of disbelief or confusion himself about how the VA really works.

Happy New year....NEVER GIVE UP .God Bless, C.C.

[MikeR]

I read this some time ago. This exchange seemed like an eye opener to the Chief Justice. I think this would be very interesting if they started hearing them. Mine took 2 years with the CAVC and the BVA moved very quickly to get me service connection once the court ruled in my favor. The training at the VA is subpar and that is a huge part of the problem.

[bluenote]

Below is the cert petiton in Byron.

http://sblog.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/12-389-2012-09-17-Lady-Byron-Supreme-Court-Petition.pdf

There is another cert petition pending which, from my perspective, has a greater likelihood of getting a grant, Veterans for Common Sense v. Shinseki. The petition can be access at http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/veterans-for-common-sense-v-shinseki/

Seth Director