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Veterans With PTSD Sue Federal Government Over Disability Benefits
Legal Times
December 18, 2008
A group of military veterans filed a class action against the federal government Wednesday, alleging that they were illegally denied disability benefits despite being diagnosed with severe cases of post-traumatic stress disorder that should have qualified them for free care.
The five soldiers, all veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, were discharged by the Army after it determined that their damaged mental health left them unfit to serve, according to a complaint filed with the U.S. Court of Federal Claims. Once released, they were assigned disability ratings well below the 50 percent figure needed to qualify for lifetime health care benefits.
The complaint alleges that starting in 2002, the Army "systematically" ignored rules requiring that all servicemen diagnosed with PTSD receive an automatic 50 percent rating. Just this past October, the Defense Department ordered the Army to stop deflating PTSD victims disability ratings.
So far, there has not been any discussion at the Defense Department about how to compensate soldiers who were denied benefits before the order, said lawyers for the soldiers. The suit asks the Army to award them the disability benefits they would have received, as well as unspecified damages.
Lawyers for the veterans are hoping that the suit’s discovery process will reveal how many other servicemen with PTSD were denied disability benefits.
"We don’t know the exact numbers of the people who were effected, but we think there were thousands," said Bart Stichman, co-director of National Veterans Legal Services Program, which is representing the soldiers.
Along with the NVLSP, the soldiers are being represented by Brad Fagg, James Kelly, Richard Black and Charles Groppe of Morgan, Lewis & Bockius. The suit is the first from the NVLSP's Lawyers Serving Warriors project, a program meant to provide veterans pro bono counsel from major firms.
This isn't the first time the Army has come under fire for its handling of PTSD victims. In California last year, a group of former soldiers filed suit against the Veterans Administration in federal court demanding that the agency completely restructure the way it processes PTSD claims and clean up a bureaucratic mess that left many former soldiers without care for months.
This article first appeared on The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times.
