The inability to support oneself, or one’s family, financially can be incredibly demoralizing and disorienting. Worry over how to make ends meet can consume daily thoughts and cause severe depression, which can worsen one’s capability of digging out of a financial hole and turning things around. Being told by the Department of Veterans’ Affairs that your inability to work has nothing to do with debilitating service-related disabilities – whether mental, physical or both – can make a bad situation seem maddening and hopeless. Hiring an experienced veterans’ law attorney is a good idea if you want to win the VA disability benefits you deserve and find financial security and peace of mind.
Recently, the law firm of Sean Kendall, a longtime veterans’ attorney and advocate, helped win a 100% disability rating for a veteran in her 30’s who cannot work as a result of numerous service-related disabilities, including severe Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. The VA Regional Office assigned to the veteran’s case had decided earlier this year that she is able to “secure [and] follow a substantially gainful occupation” because her Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder was not “permanent in nature” and she had “fail[ed] to show [she is] unemployable due to service-connected disabilities.”
In its denial of a 100% rating based on unemployability, the VA also stated – incredibly – that the veteran was scheduled “for a routine future examination in 2018 for re-evaluation” of her Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
OBTAINING AN EXPERT REPORT TO OVERTURN A VA DENIAL
Just a few months after the VA’s denial, I was able to connect the veteran with an expert psychologist who produced a detailed report on the veteran’s condition. Subsequently, our office was able to win the veteran’s case and ease the financial distress that has been making her life after military service painful and exasperating. In the report, the doctor detailed what VA had failed to take into account when denying the veteran a 100% disability rating: That trauma during military service, including sexual assault, resulted in a mental state that often finds the veteran “numb,” lacking energy or social skills, unable to focus, afraid and hypervigilant. clearly unemployable. In contrast to the VA’s assessment, the doctor our office connected the veteran with stated that “years of distress” caused by in-service trauma have left the veteran unable to function in “social and occupational areas.”
With the expert report as evidence and a veterans’ law attorney (Sean Kendall) who was regularly in touch with the VA about her case, the veteran was recently awarded a 100% rating based on unemployability caused by the service-connected disabilities that clearly prevent her from working. Without an experienced, capable veterans’ representative, it is likely she would have continued trying to navigate the VA’s infuriating appeals process for many more years, with anxiety and depression – caused by the very disabilities she was trying to secure compensation for – worsening by the day.
HIRING A VETERANS' LAW ATTORNEY TO WIN YOUR CASE
If you suffer from service-related disabilities that have rendered you unemployable, make sure to call the office of Sean Kendall today at 877-629-1712 in order to get help with your claim for VA benefits. You served with honor; it will be our honor to serve you.
