In the past few months, I have won several VA benefits claims cases that have been some of the best wins I’ve had in the past 12 years since I retired and started again volunteering as a service officer for Vietnam Veterans of America.
The first one was for an 85-year-old veteran who served in Korea and Vietnam. He has multiple medical problems related to his military service, including two that are presumed to have been caused by exposure to herbicides while he was in Vietnam, as well as secondary conditions caused by the herbicide-related illnesses.
Due to his age and inability to travel from his home to the Seattle VA Medical Center, compensation exams had to be scheduled near his home with VA contractors. This process took a very long time to have the exams scheduled and then conducted and I had to push the Seattle Regional Office to get them done.
Due to confusion over exam dates and locations, caused by VA incompetence, this veteran missed two appointments and the Regional Office threatened to dismiss the claims related to the exams.
I was eventually able to get all of this straightened out, the VA provided funds for taxis, the exams were conducted, and we finally got a rating decision after almost two years. My client was rated at 100% disabled, total and permanent, and was also given Special Monthly Compensation due to his housebound status. The retroactive payment was $114,000.
In a second case, I represented the widow of a Vietnam veteran who died from a soft-tissue sarcoma in 1999, some ten years before this disease was recognized by the VA as being presumptively caused by exposure to herbicides during his tour in Vietnam as an Explosive Ordnance Disposal specialist.
Prior to his death, the veteran had not filed a claim for service-connected disability compensation so I was not sure that his widow actually had a valid claim.
The VA ruled that this was a Nehmers claim, based on the court rulings in a case involving claims that could not have been successfully made because the VA had not recognized the connection between the illness and herbicide exposure. As a result, the widow was granted Dependents Indemnity Compensation (DIC), with a monthly benefit of $1,254 and more than $16,000 in retroactive payments.