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.

 

[RBrogen]

1 hour ago, asknod said:

Correct me if I am wrong here. The relief you seek is a claims file in your hands. Is that correct?  If you file the Ex Writ and VA complies by supplying you with your claims file, why would you win the Writ? Once VA complies,they dismiss the Writ as being moot as there is no longer any case or controversy. Now, if VA did not comply and provide you with the file, the Court would grant your Writ and sanction the VA Secretary with a monetary fine until he complied. And they would still force the Secretary to supply the claims file under continuing sanctions. 

As for the VAOIG, their job is to investigate VA abuses, medical malpractice, the correct procedures for doing claims, timeliness in complying etc. They really have to power to sanction the RMC or the Secretary for individual mistakes or errors. There is a legal path to correct inequity and deprivation of due process. If anyone has any luck with OIG getting the claims file, please report back here and tell us.

Hey Asknod, Thanks for the explanations.  I am just not familiar with Ex Writs and how they function.  The process that I became aware of to get my C-File was Privacy Act Request which doesn't have a time line so it could be 15 months, FOIA/FOIA Appeal/US District Court Law Suit which has teeth and time lines and is pretty straight forward to do. I'm going to look into the Ex Writ and educate myself on that process so I have it in my bag-O-tricks.

[Patton]

@asknod - Yesterday I read about Ex Writs to include information from your website. Which has raised a few questions, that I hope you may be able to answer? 

•  The first step would be to write Records Management. In the letter, I should let them know that if they don't reply with my request, I will file a Ex Writs. There should be a 30 day timeline on this. If they do not reply within that 30 days, file a Ex Writs.
•  I read on your website (I tried to get back to the post, but could not find it). Somebody had the same issue I have in that they had not received all of their records. In their case, they got to the BVA and the Judge's (I believe) records were 3 times more than the Veteran file. I had this happen during a C&P Exam and want those records. What type of wording would I use, since a standard FOIA wording is not working? Or is there somebody I can call to get my hidden files? Using a different form? ETC...

The VA is collecting information on us Veteran's that they are unwilling to release and this is wrong. How much of this information is misleading in order to deny our claims?

Thanks,

Patton

[RBrogen]

UPDATE:  I found that my C-File FOIA request was completed on August 8th and I should be getting it in the mail soon.  Hopefully it is my full C-File.  It appears that the FOIA Director got the Records Management group off of their butts to avoid the litigation.

[GeekySquid]

8 minutes ago, RBrogen said:

UPDATE:  I found that my C-File FOIA request was completed on August 8th

So is this the Denial you posted about  that started this thread? or is this notice about one of the moving pieces?

[RBrogen]

1 minute ago, GeekySquid said:

So is this the Denial you posted about  that started this thread? or is this notice about one of the moving pieces?

Yes it is about the original denial that through the process, I got in touch with the FOIA Director and she contacted the Records Management Center Director last Wednesday who told her that he was going to have his team work my file that evening.  It appears that was what happened ... the question now is will it be my full C-File.

[GeekySquid]

1 minute ago, RBrogen said:

Yes it is about the original denial that through the process

that will be rich if complaining to the FOIA Director will over rule Denials, bogus or not, on FOIA requests. That director will soon have to change her phone number.