-- Court says: "The performance of the United States Department of Veterans Affairs has contributed substantially to our sense of national shame."
By SCOTT LINDLAW
Associated Press
SAN FRANCISCO—A federal appeals court chastised the Veterans Affairs Department
on Thursday for failing to pay retroactive disability benefits to Vietnam War
veterans who contracted a form of leukemia after exposure to Agent Orange.
In a strongly worded opinion, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the VA
is obliged to pay retroactively.
"The performance of the United States Department of Veterans Affairs has
contributed substantially to our sense of national shame," the appeals court
wrote in its opinion.
Thursday's opinion was on a technical matter involving whether a lower court had
properly interpreted a landmark agreement in 1991 on benefits, stemming from a
class-action lawsuit originally filed in 1986.
The ruling was also related to the VA agreeing in 2003 to extend benefits to
Vietnam vets diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic leukemia, known as CLL. U.S.
troops had sprayed 20 million gallons of Agent Orange and other herbicides over
parts of South Vietnam and Cambodia in the 1960s and '70s to clear dense jungle,
and researchers later linked CLL to Agent Orange.
But with that 2003 agreement, the VA did not re-examine previous claims from
veterans suffering from the ailment, nor did it pay them retroactive benefits,
and that was the heart of the latest dispute.
The appeals court sided with veterans groups who said the veterans were entitled
to retroactive benefits.
"Three different Congresses in three different decades have enacted legislation
signed by three different presidents, designed to ensure the payment of such
benefits to veterans afflicted with Agent Orange-related ailments," Judge
Stephen Reinhardt wrote in the court's opinion.
"We would hope that this litigation will now end, that our government will now
respect the legal obligations it undertook in the consent decree some 16 years
ago, that obstructionist bureaucratic opposition will now cease, and that our
veterans will finally receive the benefits to which they are morally and legally
entitled," Reinhardt wrote.
One lawyer involved in the case said Thursday's ruling could finally halt years
of legal battles—if the VA does not appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
"We think this is a huge victory for the vets who have suffered from CLL for
years and who had been unjustly denied benefits for that disability, and we're
just very glad that the Court of Appeals agreed with our arguments and is doing
the right thing in our opinion," said Richard Spataro, a lawyer with the
National Veterans Legal Services Program.
Spataro has been involved in the case for about two years, most recently helping
prepare briefs in the appeal decided Thursday.
More broadly, Spataro said, if researchers link other disabilities to Agent
Orange, "this decision will preclude the VA from relitigating and trying to deny
retroactive benefits for those veterans."
A spokesman for the VA did not immediately respond to a message left after
business hours on Thursday.
Larry Scott --
For more on Agent Orange, use the VA Watchdog search engine...click here...
http://www.yourvabenefits.org/sessearch.php?q=agent+orange&op=ph
http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_6415573?nclick_check=1
http://www.vawatchdog.org/07/nf07/nfJUL07/nf072007-11.htm
