This is an illuminating case for several different reasons.  Veterans with HCV have been availing themselves of our limited resources now for three years and we have never illustrated what happens when you get caught stretching the truth up at the “Big House”. This is a wonderful example even though it is a single judge ruling. Gentle Veterans with real morals would not need to search this decision for useable info anyway. 

     Neatly summarized here is the case of one Robert J. George versus his nemesis, Gen. Shinseki.  Old Bob, here, is attempting to pull the wool over Judge Lawrence B. Hagel’s eyes. Don’t ever try this at the CAVC and most especially, don’t even try it on any judge with the name LAW in his first name. 

     Bob filed for six items in April of 06, among them Hepatitis. He didn’t submit much more than the Risk Factors Questionnaire. Yep. No nexus or any other supporting records. Just that dogged male determination we are so well acquainted with-Onward through the mental Fog! Full speed ahead! VA denied that November and he filed his NOD. Subsequently, in March of 07, he was sent a letter setting up a C&P exam. He claims he never got his 2007 notice from the VA to report.  Nevertheless, he didn’t complain of this in his NOD. When the SOC was issued stating the same thing, he still never murmured any disagreement with their assessment of the posture of the denial. In fact, he never even raised the subject in his Form 9. The BVA made short work of this and put a fork in it. He dutifully filed his NOA and marched on up to D.C.

   0 hour was 9 A.M. Thursday, February 24^th. Judge Hagel properly deduced that if old Bob had never received that scheduling letter and missed his Dog and Pony show, he sure would have pissed blood to prove it before he ever got up to the Court. He had ample opportunity at the AOJ and again at the Board. He politely let Bob off the hook on whether he was lying about it or not. An impolitic judge might not have, but the President always appoints judges with more than just strong credentials. Fortunately for Bob, this saved him a lot of face. Now he can blame his law dog, Jeany C. Mark, Esquire, for the inconvenient, incongruous facts. Such is life.

     At any rate, here’s what happens when you “disremember”:

 GeorgeRJ_09-3294