Chief Justice, Roberts Says:

[broncovet]

When you appeal, you have about a 70 percent chance of either a remand or an outright grant. You need to remember this, then next time a VA employee or VSO suggests you drop your appeal. Of course they want you to drop it! It makes them look good!

http://www.veteranstoday.com/2010/02/25/chief-justice-startled-by-gov-errors-in-veterans-cases/

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.

Bart Stichman, co-executive director of the National Veterans Legal Services Program, said he thinks the percentage is greater than the government’s number. ‘That means the quality of decision-making at the Board of Veterans Appeals is not very good,’ he said. ‘We’ve been saying that for years. The number means not only did they wrongly decide the case but their position wasn’t substantially justified. Not too good.’

[Pete53]

Something is rotten in Denmark.

[john999]

If the VA can deny and delay claims by a certain number of years vets will die, loose motivation, move geographically, and get lost. This is the goal IMO. When you really start to get a much higher rating as in 70%-100% you find that you have a major burden of time and effort. It took me about three years to go from 30% to TDIU P&T. That is including three IME's. Three DRO appeals and two C&P exams. I had been SC since 1971 but I had never really gotten serious because I could still work and had a decent job. The VARO was adversarial all the way. They went over my IME's with a microscope to find anything they could use to deny my claims for TDIU. I was already on SSDI and OPM disability for the SC condition.

When I see vets putting their whole faith in the hands of some VA C&P exam doctor I shudder. If not for IME exams I would still be at 30%. I used the IME's to dispute all the assumptions the VA made that my TDIU was due to non-sc conditions.

I got a lot of help here at Hadit. To show continuity of symptoms you either need to really understand the system, or be so ill or injured to be in constant treatment. I just talked to a vet at the VA who hurt his back in a crash in the service. He was treated for it in the service, but it did not start to bother him again seriously for a number of years. Therefore he did not have continuity of symptoms or treatment that he could point at to show the VA that his original disability/injury was continually affecting him. You hurt your back when you are young and it usually comes back to haunt you when you are older due to arthritis and degeneration around the original injury. However, the VA makes you prove the connection between original injury and current injury/illness. I have at least 80% rating just due to presumptives due to AO. If not for presumptive rule I would still be P&T, but would not have HB.

How many 22 year olds are thinking about how they will be doing 30 years later, and planning their VA strategy to get correct compensation? You need to plan your illnesses and injuries to fit into the VA framework. Nobody really does that except in the minds of VARO's. Half of my SMR's are missing and I never even got a copy or an exit exam back in the day. At least younger vets today usually get a copy of their SMR's and get an exit exam which givers them a chance to document their illnesses and injuries one last time.

John

[JR Reihs]

I agree with John 100% "none VA Math". The government bean counters have a pretty good handle on the timeline on how many Vets are dying off vs how many new ones are coming on board. It is nothing but a numbers game with the VA, they get x amount of money per year divided by x number of expected claims, minus expected number of of dead vets that frees up the money for the new claims. They are very well aware that if all claims were granted in proper form, the system would be overwhelmed in dollar value, so they deny and deny until they no longer can, by that time, enough vets have passed causing less stress on the system when award is finally made.

If the VA were ever made to pay interest on awards, most of this non-sense would stop.

[justrluk]

I think the perspective that the government is infinite and we are not goes a long way in understanding the VA perspective. Most agencies see themselves as infinite in terms of existence. They seem to forget that they had a start and could very well have an end. I've worked in jobs that my goal was to 'work myself out of a job' because of the nature of the work I did. In contrast, the VA seems to work only to get bigger. By creating denials and lower-than-reality ratings, employees protect their integrity to a dinosaur of a system. Yet, they kick the can down the hall to those working appeals. Also, if so many denials by the VLJs are so easily overturned or reversed, it wouldn't hurt a VLJ to read the case from the higher court (as lawyers are supposed to do to stay current on trending law interpretation) and improve their way of doing business. IMO, the objective is not to figure out how to keep saying 'no', but how to tell the veteran 'here's the appropriate, just and fair rating. Legal challenges accepted.' It seems unreal that in a court of law, one has to be considered innocent or correct until proven otherwise. I would think the same standard should be applied here. For example, wouldn't it be easier for me to recommend what I believe my percentage should be on a given disabling factor and have the VA provide their interpretation of the medical data and either support or refute my claim? It works with insurance claims, medical claims and tax filing. Why not the VA system??? Just a rant, but today I'm at the two and a quarter year mark since the remand order so I'm feeling a little touchy.

OR - why not simply go to court to start with if the VLJ process only adds steps and frustration for bad decisions?

[lotzaspotz]

Did anyone notice that this link is over five years old? I wonder if things have gotten worse since then or have remained pretty much the same. Also have not seen any indication from Chief Justice Roberts of any current interest in this disgraceful treatment of veterans disability claims.

[GuaymasJim]

Thanks lotzaspots for beating me to the punch. I have quoted the Chief Justice so many times in the last 5 years that I have memorized his words. Unfortunately, he and others haven't acted on this lousy situation. If you look at the increase in BVA appeals, you will discover how the claim backlog was reduced. Until someone is actually fired and their ludicrous unearned bonuses clawed back and retirement funds reduced combined with criminal charges in appropriate cases, there will be no changes. Without any these consequences, no one in the VA has no motivation to improve. In fact, the current system actually rewards incompetence, malfeasance, and inefficiency.

Combined, we veterans are the largest voting block in the nation. We could call every election, but far too often many of us vote against our own best interests or are single issue voters. The various service organizations have totally self-serving agendas which aren't particularly pro-veteran. Their main agenda is the survival of their own organizations. The government employees union has had to know these scandals were brewing, but said nothing about it publicly. The union's agenda is exactly the same as the service organizations and the VA in general protect the organizations' survival above all else including veterans' health and welfare. The political class shamelessly uses us as campaign pawns and reelection aides through their constituent services. Having the judicial branch ignore us, the executive branch using us as negotiating chips, and the legislative branch forgetting about us is a perfect trifecta that insures no legitimate VA reform will ever be accomplished--at least not in my life time and many others'.

This could change if we ALL stand together as a "band of brothers and sisters" demanding the restoration of our civil rights and elevation back into first class citizenship. I wouldn't hold my breath on that ever happening.

Edited July 29, 2015 by GuaymasJim