No sooner following its incestuous birth and surreptitious  inauguration,  the brand new (for those of you in St. Petersburg) VA Form 21-0958 NOD (Notice Of Disagreement) is generating friction with attorneys for Veterans. And well it should.

Nicknamed the Notice Of Desire to communicate or Dialing for Dollars, the 21-0958 is beginning to cause  problems nationwide. The 21-0958 initially had a staggered launch to see if it was viable. With VA’s spotty track record on “fixing” things like the VBMS (Veterans Benefits Management System-nicknamed the HAL 9000), they gingerly floated this at only a few Regional Offices. One noted Veterans attorney encountered the problem in Atlanta when the local Decision Review Officer (DRO) contacted the claimant and was on the verge of convincing him to dismiss his claim which eventually netted him $150,000.00. Fortunately saner heads prevailed and the cautious spouse induced him into checking with his rainmaker first.

New VBMS Scanning computer

Katrina Eagle was next on the 13th of May this spring when the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims denied her Veteran’s petition of Mandamus to muzzle the VA Secretary et al from contacting him.  Prior to this the Roanoke VARO was fishing for dismissals in much the same way. It would seem with the new VBMS up and running now, Decision Review Officers find themselves with little to do. Idle hands being the Devil’s workshop, this doesn’t bode well for Veterans.

As an aside, I’m not implying that Veterans, as a class, are loudmouth, blustering idiots like fighter pilots at the O club at 1630. I prefer to call Veterans “loquacious” as in frequent conversationalists. They are probably more inclined to weigh in on any given subject in an open forum than their civilian brethren. Having served America when the other 93% are disinclined assuredly gives them the right to weigh in with gusto.

With that in mind, and the propensity of the VA to keep you in a dark cellar amply supplied with manure, when they do come calling, most Vets will probably get rolled. Absent a VSO or law dog on speed dial and a second landline, many of us are going to feel pressured into accepting a rump settlement when faced with an ultimatum. What the hey? They ignore your for 500 days and then come courting. You have 7 minutes to make a major decision in your eyes. Take the bird in the hand or risk losing the covey in the bushes. Classic good cop, bad cop modus operandi. You get out of hard time at the Board of Veterans Appeals jail if you’ll just agree to Tinnitus at 10 percent.

In any legal venue, poaching the appellant by a back door communication flies in the face of any normal lawyer/client relationship.  It’s unheard of. Hell, it’s illegal everywhere except Chicago. For an attorney or VSO, this feels like being a pro football coach and having your opposition team’s coach come over and start offering one of your players a good contract in the middle of a game if he’ll only commit to signing right there. VA doesn’t see anything odd or untoward about this practice. This is evident by box #13 on the 21-0958.

So, in sum, how does a form get “born” at the VA in the back room of the Dayton RO and metastasize nationwide to all VAROS in months with no fanfare and coming out party? How, indeed. VA chutzpah, guided by the belief that they operate under Divine Guidance is my guess. I always thought substantive changes in procedure that can alter history (in the VA context) had to be born in Congress or at least receive its Imprimatur. Apparently I was wrong. Ms. Eagle must have been nonplussed to find this was the General Counsel’s opinion at oral argument last week. Conversely, the poor DRO in Atlanta must have been dumbfounded when he lost that trophy largemouth Bass to an informed spouse.

Since we cannot all be protected from our verbal excesses, it is the considered opinion of this Veteran that box #13 has the potential to cause more grief than benefit. I call that the J1VO (just one Vet’s opinion) endorsement.  Since we live in America and are free to move about, the right to remain stupid is inviolate and I suspect some will fall prey to this new ploy. Beware DROs dialing for dollars (yours).

VA Decision Review Officer