Author: seth-old

Previously, I had blogged about an April 23, 2015 decision from the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claim (CAVC)  in Gray v. McDonald.  In Gray, the CAVC had remanded because the Department of Veterans Affairs’ (VA) interpretation of “inland waterways” for the purposes of the presumption of exposure to Agent Orange (TCDD) was found arbitrary.  Link to that blog post (to include...

Countless news organizations have published articles concerning the Merit Systems Protection Board’s (MSPB) decisions reversing the demotions of Department of Veterans Affairs’ Senior Executive Service (SES) employees, Kimberly Graves and Diana Rubens.  While the decisions were covered by the press ad nauseam, no one has seen fit to provide link to the actual decisions. Remedy...

On January 29, 2016, recently appointed VA Under Secretary for Health, Dr. David Shulkin, held a conference between VHA leaders and finalists in a competition to present pitches for improvement to the Veterans Health Administration.  As identified in the link below , each finalist (I believe all VHA employees) presented “rapid-fire virtual pitches . . . similar to the television show...

On January 27, 2016, VA Secretary McDonald released a statement regarding the need to reform the appeals process for benefits under Title 38.  His statement can be downloaded at the following link: Statement from VA Secretary Robert McDonald On the Need to Reform the Veterans Appeals Process_January 27 2016 My takeaway: (1) this is the closest the VA has come to acknowledging that the agency...

On Wednesday, February 3, 2016, at 6 pm, Rutgers Law School (Camden Campus) is holding a panel discussion on military veterans in the legal profession.  More information about location/time can be found at Rutgers Law Veterans Panel. Every now and then I get a call from a law student interested the JAG Corps/military, so this would be a terrific time to get a frame of reference for how...

On January 21, 2016, the Senate’s Committee on Veterans’ Affairs held a hearing entitled, “VA’s Transformation Strategy: Examining the Plan to Modernize VA.”  You can listen to the hearing at Senate Hearings. For those not snowed in and need of a CliffNotes version, my recommendation is to review pages 9-18 of Secretary McDonald’s twelve points of priority...

Social media sites have become a ubiquitous part of daily life (though I’ve resisted the siren’s call to the best of my ability).  RallyPoint is a social media site specifically oriented towards military/veteran professionals.  I Wiki’d it and apparently Forbes magazine called it “LinkedIn on steroids for members of the military.”  Worth a look for service members...

On December 30, 2015 the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims (CAVC) issued a precedential decision in Kuppamala v. McDonald (No. 14-2449).  The decision can be accessed at the following link: https://www.uscourts.cavc.gov/documents/Kuppamala14-2449.pdf. The holding of the decision is finite and really only applies to instances where the Department of Veterans Affairs (DVA) has referred a...

The Institute of Medicine was charged by Congress to conduct a follow-up study related to the long-term health effects of Project 112/Project SHAD in 2010.  That study was released this week and can be found at http://iom.nationalacademies.org/Reports/2016/Assessing-Health-Outcomes-Among-Veterans-of-Project-SHAD.aspx.  As the IOM report reflects, DoD has still not de-classified certain...

On December 29, 2015, the Wall Street Journal published an article that the “U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit is considering whether that to allow class actions in the veterans’ court.”   The article can be accessed at Wall Street Journal Article. Although not specifically cited in the article, the appeal before the Fed. Cir. involves the Court of Appeals for...