LOUISIANA VETERANS BENEFITS BLOG
Law Office of Michael J. Sepanik. Representing Veterans in Louisiana and Nationwide.
VA Dependency and Indemnity Compensation (DIC) is a monthly benefit paid to qualifying surviving spouses and dependent children of Veterans. The monthly rate for 2023 is $1,562.74 and the benefits are tax exempt. For certain surviving spouses, additional monthly payments are available as part of their DIC eligibility. Continue reading “Widows (Surviving Spouses) May Be Owed Additional DIC Amounts”
Our office has recently achieved service-connection for multiple veterans based on personal assault and other forms of harassment caused by race-based enmity. Fortunately for the veterans, as they had been fighting the VA sometimes for decades to demonstrate the effect of race and country-of-origin discrimination, they were awarded significant back benefits as part of their awards. Continue reading “VA Benefits Awarded Based on Race-Based Assaults and Harassment”
In 2018, we posted a blog entry addressing that, well over a decade past Hurricane Katrina, Veterans’ claims were still hampered by mistakes made by local VA offices in the months and years following the disaster. The prior post discussed that Louisiana Veterans who filed claims between 2005 and 2012, or those whose claims were in the evidentiary phase at the New Orleans Regional Office, faced myriad problems including unadjudicated claims, ratings mistakes, and failure to retain and consider medical records, examinations and lay statements, among other issues. Continue reading “Louisiana Widow Prevails At the CAVC on Katrina-Era VA Mistake”
A recent memorandum decision by Judge Hagel serves as a reminder to Veterans that forwarding a favorable disability finding by the Social Security Administration is no “slam dunk” for a finding of unemployability/TDIU. Veterans that submit SSA decision letters on their own miss the crucial opportunity to explain at the outset that while an SSA finding may reference several conditions that—in the aggregate—render the Veteran disabled; the Veteran’s service-connected conditions, even considered alone, render the Veteran unemployable. Continue reading “Unrepresented Veterans Beware: SSA Disability Determinations Do Not Guarantee Unemployability Findings By the VA”
When a married Veteran dies due to a condition related to their military service, their surviving spouse (and sometimes their children) is eligible to receive DIC- a monthly payment from the VA for the remainder of their lives. However, where Veterans were exposed to Agent Orange decades ago, yet were only recently diagnosed with cancer, survivors are often unaware of the fact that they may be owed DIC payments from the VA. Continue reading “What Surviving Spouses of Agent Orange-Exposed Veterans Need to Know”
Many Veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan have suffered unexplained symptoms of shortness of breath. Until recently, those symptoms were denied by the VA, as oftentimes Pulmonary Function Testing (“PFTs”) for those Veterans returned “normal” results. Recently, however, lung biopsies taken from Veterans have linked constrictive bronchiolitis directly to exposure to burn pits, toxic air and debris, and repeated exposure to sandstorms. (504) 235-4075
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In Saunders v. Wilkie, 886 F.3d 1356 (Fed. Cir. 2018), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit overturned prior precedent holding that pain alone (without an identifiable condition) does not constitute a disability upon which service connection may be granted. Continue reading “Federal Circuit Rules That Pain Alone Can Constitute a Disability”
VA issues tens of thousands of payments each month; and sometimes, the payments are miscalculated. If a Veteran is paid more than they are owed by the VA, the VA will claim that the Veteran is indebted to the VA in the amount of the alleged overpayment. Continue reading “What to Do When VA Claims an Overpayment is a Debt”
It is not uncommon for a VA disability claim to be awarded five, ten, or even twenty years after it is originally filed. It’s no secret– VA claims often take a very long time. However, so long as the “claim stream” is kept alive by meeting all time deadlines for filings and appeals, upon service-connection, a Veteran will receive a back benefits award equaling the monthly payments owed since the time they first filed for benefits. Continue reading “Don’t Let a Faulty VA Exam Sink Your Claim”
You may or may not have an attorney representing you before the VA. If you are unrepresented, the greatest obstacle you face is preserving the earliest effective date possible for your claim for service connection. An earlier effective date can translate into a Veteran being awarded years, or sometimes even decades, of back benefits. Continue reading “Veterans Tip: Protect Your Earliest Effective Date”