C-File Law Suit

[RBrogen]

Curious if anyone here has gone through the FOIA and had to ultimately sue the VA in Federal District Court to force them to provide their C-File in a more timely manner?  FOIA's are required to be fulfilled in 20 business days by law assuming no special circumstances.  Obviously the VA isn't going to respond to anything in 20 days but when it goes on for 6 months or longer that is ridiculous and slows our ability to address claim denials/issues quickly.  I just filed a FOIA appeal and was sent a letter from the Office of General Counsel, Veterans Administration that my FOIA request was DENIED under FOIA Exemption 6 but remanded to be provided via the Privacy Act.  The issue is that the Privacy Act process has no deadline so they can take as long as they want, while the FOIA actually has deadlines and a process for relief when they don't do what they are supposed to.  From my understanding, this is a tact the VA uses to confuse people into thinking it is a Privacy Act request and not a FOIA request.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Patton]

4 hours ago, RBrogen said:

I have no idea why they calculate the bilateral factor differently

VA math, I am not sure how they came up with 3.5% but my bilateral factor also included secondary conditions. The sad part is at 80% I still need another 110% to reach 100% and that is going to be very hard to do. I will get there but it is going to take a lot more work. I should have started this years ago, when my Brother-in-Law had told me that I needed to file.