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 minute ago, GeekySquid said:

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.

When the denial was blatantly illegal use of FOIA Exemption 6 I think it was right in  her wheelhouse to say WTF to the RMC Director and the OGC.  A combination of things, not a small factor of which is the great feedback and information shared here on Hadit!

Edited August 11, 2019 by RBrogen

[GeekySquid]

Just now, RBrogen said:

When the denial was blatantly illegal use of FOIA Exemption 6

I certainly agree, but reality is if that use of power becomes a common theme out here in the wild, you can bet the squirrels will come down out of the trees and overwhelm her office with questionable attempts to do the same...Exemption 6 or not.

[RBrogen]

2 minutes ago, GeekySquid said:

I certainly agree, but reality is if that use of power becomes a common theme out here in the wild, you can bet the squirrels will come down out of the trees and overwhelm her office with questionable attempts to do the same...Exemption 6 or not.

Yeah ... I can see both sides where those who can help would sometimes be reluctant to because of the deluge of BS requests from those who don't do their homework.  They would never be able to do their jobs.  I've spent the last 17 months building rapports with contacts while I educated myself about the entire process.  To the person, they are all more than willing to help when you come to them, prepared, with concise information.

[GeekySquid]

21 minutes ago, RBrogen said:

I've spent the last 17 months building rapports with contacts while I educated myself about the entire process.

the three distinct parts of that sentence set your actions/choices above the norm.

[RBrogen]

42 minutes ago, GeekySquid said:

the three distinct parts of that sentence set your actions/choices above the norm.

Thanks GeekySquid .... I try to put myself in their shoes as well.  The people working at the VA know they history of the VA has been deplorable and that they have a LONG way to go to get where they should be as an organization.  But I find you get a lot more help with kindness, understanding and perseverance than irate yelling, demanding and posturing.  There are a lot of good people at the VA, and some not so good.  Given the chance, most will help you but you have to own your side and responsibility for your claim.  That means educating yourself to all of your claimable conditions, understanding 38 CFR and how to present your condition in such a way to make it undeniably connected and ratable. You also have to READ EVERYTHING multiple times to ensure you understand exactly what the diagnosis are, potential SC conditions, denial letters, C&P reports etc.  It's WORK but it is ultimately your responsibility to do that work if you want to get your claim approved and rated appropriately.

Unfortunately where I think many get bogged down is that they don't know where to start or don't educate themselves to the process fully.  You can't expect a quick or accurate claim adjudication if you just say I have X condition(s), go look at my medical records and pay me.  You have to lay each condition out methodically, connect the dots for NEXUS and provide support documentation so that a C&P examiner and Raters can look at your claim and say ... Ahhh, condition 1, here's the nexus, here's the proof .... let me assign the rating.  Versus, here's a vague condition, they want me to troll through hundreds if not thousands of pages of hard to read medical records to find the preverbal needle in a haystack.  I've been working with several veterans to give them the shell of the process so they can then educate themselves like I did.  I think the more of us that take this approach, the more we'll see positive results.

Edited August 11, 2019 by RBrogen

[GeekySquid]

9 hours ago, RBrogen said:

Unfortunately where I think many get bogged down is that they don't know where to start or don't educate themselves to the process fully.  You can't expect a quick or accurate claim adjudication if you just say I have X condition(s), go look at my medical records and pay me. 

bingo... and I believe most of us have been there at some point