BVA Hearing.

[Whodat]

Has any of the Vets with the Hadit family had a BVA hearing that are still in the Legacy system within the last 4 months? If so, can you share your experience?

[Whodat]

Greetings Hadit family,

Sorry that I have been offline for awhile. After Christmas, I have made a big move from Missouri to La.

Hitting back on this topic that I had started. BVA is on a roll with delays. Had my hearing in April 2022 and as of today, no decision or nothing. I thought hiring more judges would speed things up. Not. 

 

[knoxcap]

Sorry this is getting to you late. Not sure any information I have will help. My husbands claim went before a BVA judge June 8th. He is a legacy claimant. It took about 2 years. 

His claim was done via teleconference and was pretty simple getting on. We have an attorney that supplied us with the info to logon etc…. and we had a little online get-together with him prior to the judge logging in.  The judge asked a few questions and if any of the questions were confusing the attorney helped in that area. We were not content with the judge we got, who seemed new to the claims process. Our attorney had to name some cases that BVA agreed with disabled vets on that ran along the same route as ours and the judge did not want to look at them. He was just kind of argumentative regarding the claim. Our attorney told us later that MOST of the judges are very accommodating and willing to be open minded. The judge did request additional nexus letters from doctors and gave us the 90 days for that.

We got all the nexus redone and sent back in and are now waiting on notification that they’ve received our documents and it’s gone back before the judge. I’m hoping his group of attorneys that work on the claims are able to see that we had already supplied everything and agrees that my husband is 100% with SMC’s.

I hope this helps a little. When I applied for mine I made it to BVA and settled at that time, so we’ve been any farther than we are now. Hope you seen quickly and get what your looking for. 

[broncovet]

Im often suprised, as what it seems like it rarely is.  So this may be just what you need.  If the evidence was there, you should be good to go.  

Your attorney should have a "pretty good idea" if you would get an award, and would not even have taken your case had he thought your chances were slim.  Just hang in there and wait.  

You and your attorney can decide what to do, if the Board decision is unfavorable.  

Remember, at the CAVC level, most of the attorney fees are paid by eaja..not you.  So, a denial at the board could actually be good for you, especially if its wrong. You could save a lot of attorney fees.  

If you lose at the board, the attorney gets nothing.  You need to appeal quickly, you dont have a year to appeal BVA cases.  If memory serves me, a NOA needs to be filed within 120 days.  

 

[Whodat]

Thanks for all of your input. The hardest part is hurry up and wait. I am on my 5th year. I had my video conference on April 23rd. 

In the meantime, I have been reading lots of BVA decisions with the Judge that did my hearing, she does not grant many cases. Lots of remands or denials. 

[knoxcap]

Thank you for that. Had no clue that the fees are paid differently at CAVC level. Since I’ve never been any farther than at the BVA level I should probably start looking into the logistics, just in case. 

[knoxcap]

Whodat, my husband started his claim in 2015 and so also are at “hurry up and wait”. Can I ask you what your claims are and if you represented yourself? Did you look at claims with other judges that had the same issues? Has your claim gone back to the judge yet? My husbands is a very difficult case since his is for hemochromatosis. Our attorney supplied our judge with 2 BVA cases that won. Not sure if it will help later. I hope you get your claims decided soon and they are all accepted. 5 years will be a great backpay.