At Morgan & Morgan, our attorneys are dedicated to helping Veterans and their loved ones recover the benefits they deserve. We are proud that more than 100 of our attorneys and team members have served in the military. They offer a unique understanding of the Veterans benefits process, as well as profound empathy for all the brave Americans who have served their country.

We understand that obtaining benefits can be a complicated and frustrating process that often involves multiple appeals. Our firm has handled countless claims for Veterans benefits, including disability benefits, survivor benefits, employment benefits, educational benefits, healthcare, life insurance, and more.

Cases We Handle

• Service connection
• Individual Unemployability
• Special Monthly Compensation
• Dependents Indemnity Compensation

When Veterans come home, the Department of Veteran Affairs is there to help them get back on their feet. It is meant to be a tremendous help for Veterans, especially those with a service-related disability. But too often, valid claims for benefits submitted by our Veterans get denied by the VA, sometimes for the most minor reasons, such as an error on paperwork. Our Veterans deserve far better treatment.

Morgan & Morgan’s employs attorneys with considerable experience helping Veterans and their families receive the benefits they so sorely need. We are one of only a handful of firms practicing in this challenging area of law and are proud to assist Veterans in obtaining compensation for their service-connected injuries, disabilities, and diseases.

Eligibility for Veterans' Disability Benefits

An applicant must meet four basic requirements to qualify for disability benefits from the VA:

• They must be a Veteran.
• They must have a current medical condition.
• They must have sustained an injury or disease during service.
• Their current disability must be related to their tour of duty (this includes diseases or conditions that were exacerbated during service).
• Obtaining disability benefits often hinges on whether a Veteran can prove that their injury or condition was related to their service.

Injury Types That are Included

Our attorneys have experience recovering benefits for Veterans with the following injuries and conditions (among others):

• Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
• Back and spinal injuries
• Knee, leg, and arm injuries
• Gulf War syndrome
• Traumatic brain injury
• Amputations
• Tropical diseases such as dysentery and malaria
• Gunshot and shrapnel wounds
• Illnesses from exposure to toxic chemicals or uranium

Please note that this is not an exhaustive list, and if your client’s condition does not appear above, they could still be eligible for benefits.

Proving A Disability Is Service-Related

To show that a disability is service-related, a Veteran must demonstrate the following:

• Medical diagnosis of a current disability
• Medical proof of the development or aggravation of a disease/injury during service
• Medical evidence of a connection between the in-service disease/injury and the current disability

Disability Ratings

When reviewing an application, the VA issues a rating decision through the Regional Office (RO) where the application was filed. The total benefits a Veteran receives are based on the VA’s determination of how disabled they are, on a scale from 10 to 100%.

Veterans can receive anywhere from $142 (for 10% with no dependents) to $3,684 per month (for 100% with four dependents), depending on their disability rating and number and type of dependents. Benefits are tax-free, and individuals may receive both Social Security Disability (SSD, SSDI) and Veteran’s disability at the same time, with no offset.

Multiple Disabilities

When a Veteran suffers from multiple service-related disabilities or conditions, a special (and confusing) formula is used to establish their total disability rating level. First, the VA will rank the Veteran’s disabilities from most severe to least severe. Then, by examining the most serious disability, the VA will determine how efficient the Veteran can be.

For instance, if the VA assigns the most severe disability at 30%, the Veteran is still 70% efficient. Next, the VA will consider the second most serious disability. If a Veteran’s second disability warrants a 10% rating, then 10% of the remaining 70% efficiency will be evaluated.

In this instance, this number (7%) will be added to the original disability rating (30%) for a total of 37%. Finally, this number will be rounded up or down to the nearest multiple of ten — so this Veteran would be considered 40% disabled instead of 37%.

This is not a perfect system, of course, but if your client has multiple disabilities, all of them should all factor into their rating.

Appealing Disability Rating

If a Veteran believes their disability rating is too low, they can file an appeal. This is crucial because a rating that’s too low will amount to inadequate benefits for their injury.

A Veteran may also ask for a review by a decision review officer (DRO). This is an officer who was not involved in determining the Veteran’s disability rating who will carry out their own review. Most often, they will either leave the rating unchanged or raise it. They cannot lower a disability rating unless an egregious mistake has been made in assigning a higher rating than warranted.

If the Veteran doesn’t approve of the decision rendered by the DRO, they can appeal further to the Board of Veterans Appeals (BVA). The claimant is permitted to bring a representative — such as an attorney — to the meeting. If a claimant is denied again, they can appeal once more to the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims (CAVC). Note that there are very small windows of time between each of these steps, and if a service member misses a deadline, they may become ineligible for benefits.

If this process sounds tedious and overly complicated, that’s because it is. That’s why so many vets decide to hire a lawyer who knows the appeals process inside and out.

Disability Rating Changes

The VA is permitted to alter a disability rating in certain situations. The VA may require a re-examination six months after the Veteran has left service, and then follow-up examinations two-to-five years later to determine if the disability still exists and if its severity has lessened.

These exams often occur if the Veteran’s disability is expected to improve, evidence has been presented indicating a change in disability, or the current disability rating percentage is incorrect. In these instances, a Veteran's benefits may be reduced or stopped completely.

Retroactive Awards

As you may know, the VA can take months or even years to approve a disability benefit claim. For that reason, they usually award benefits retroactively for the time period between when a Veteran applied and when they were approved.

For example, if your client applied for benefits in March 2019 but weren’t approved until September 2019, your client would be entitled to six months of backpay for that span, in addition to the monthly payments they would receive moving forward.

Unfortunately, unless your client was discharged from the service or exposed to Agent Orange, your client is unlikely to recover retroactive awards for the time period prior to your client’s benefits application (regardless of when they were diagnosed with their condition).

Survivor Benefits Offered by the VA

The VA offers a wide range of benefits and services for the spouses, dependent children, and dependent parents of deceased Veterans. These benefits include the following:

• Education Program Refund
• Civil Service Preference
• Commissary and Exchange Privileges
• Burial-Related Benefits
• Dependency and Indemnity Compensation (DIC)
• Parents’ DIC
• Death Pension
• Education and Training
• Healthcare
• Home Loan Guarantee
• Life Insurance Proceeds

If your client was denied these benefits, they may want to speak with a Veterans benefits attorney.

The VA doesn’t make it easy enough for injured Veterans to receive the benefits they need. Morgan & Morgan is America’s largest personal injury law firm, which means we have the resources, reputation, and experience to take on the VA and win. Our attorneys can boost your client’s odds of qualifying for VA benefits early on in the appeals process, saving them time and improving their quality of life.