No Bva Decision Posted, What Can A Veteran Do?

[pacmanx1]

A veteran received their BVA decision last year but the BVA decision is not on-line. I have the claim number and the citation number but when I plug them in nothing comes up. When the veteran called the BVA 1 800 number they said they had nothing to do with the decision being uploaded on-line. What can the Veteran do? The Veteran has even tried to call the regular VA 1 800 number and that Peggy did not know what to do either. Yes we have both tried to Google and Bing search and nothing came up. So what or who can be called or contacted. At this point I can not give out the citation number or docket number. The veteran did put in an iris to correct this problem and it has not been corrected

Edited September 16, 2014 by pacmanx1

[carlie]

Try this:

Check BVA again by their search feature - plug in VARO + the main issues + date

Also try a BVA search by docket #

[Guest]

Carlie, It always come back with all other BVA decision that are close but when it comes to the exact docket number, citation number and issue then it says to search in a different way which really doesn't help. I think it is not logged in correctly or not logged in at all.

[brokensoldier244th]

Do they still have the original decision packet? If so, just scan them in. and then they have all the copies they ever need.

[Berta]

At the search site for the BVA they state:

"Board of Veterans' Appeals decisions are also available for public inspection and copying in the BVA Research Center, 811 Vermont Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20420. The Board has made every reasonable effort to make all of its decisions for the year available through this search page. However, if decisions are discovered to have been omitted, they will be made available for public inspection and copying in the Board's Research Center."

Maybe they would copy it for you with a Privacy Act request.

Did the vet have a POA? They would still have a copy of it.

But I agree with Carlie...sometimes you have to play around with their search feature. It took me quite some time to find my 2008 board decision there.

If it was a remand, then the VARO would still have it in the veteran's C file I think.

Sometimes you have to add key words to the search features....after you narrow it down to the VARO and year of the decision....anything that might make the decision fairly unique, words like mortar attack,typhoon, Hue, Kandahar, Fort Drum, Dr.B,
Dr S ( any Dr's initials who might have opined in an IMO) or use their full name, specific medical terms, and under the claimed disability itself.

How old is this decision? Was it an award, remand or denial?

If a denial, did the vet file with the CAVC? Did he/she have a CAVC lawyer? They should have a copy of the decision.

I had to find a BVA decision in a hurry once. The vet and his vet rep were a few miles away from my home and called me because they thought they were lost. They were closer than they thought.

I asked when they called ,if they had a copy of the last BVA decision with them but they had forgotten to bring it.

All I had to search with was a guess on the year (it was fairly recent decision) ,

it was from an appeal from my VARO Buffalo,

I knew the vet was Army ,had claimed diabetes, was a black male , had VD in service a few times, and served stateside for 4 years, based on what he told me by phone, before this meeting.He also had been to the CAVC twice.

Somehow I found the decision just as they pulled into my drive way, with just this limited info.

He won his claim about a year later. No VD at all. He had symptoms of diabetes in service,and the Army ( and he himself) thought he had VD.

The BEST thing this vet did was he would Never give up and kept that claim going for many years to protect his EED. His private endocrinologist prepared a great IMO for him based on the research I did with his SMRs. Neither his rep, nor his lawyers at the CAVC ever really looked at his SMRs and they were difficult to read but if one is willing to do the leg work, all that will surely pay off.

I also prepared for him a NOD on the legal fee the lawyers were trying to charge him. It was a ludicrous fee based on a few letters they wrote for him, that did nothing whatsoever to advance the claim.

Veterans can appeal CAVC legal fees if they can base the appeal on a criteria the VA has for paying them.

I had proof of what the lawyers had failed to do.

At the BVA I have found just using Citation and Docket numbers often brings up nothing or way too much...

Edited September 16, 2014 by Berta

[VetlawUS]

When you say you want it uploaded online, to which database? BVA Decisions database, Veteran's eBenefits, Lexis?

[Navy04]

We all know that the VA has been known to get rid of or Altar a little info every now and then, especially when it was not in their favor.