Retired Navy Commander Jonathan Haas meticulously prepared everything for his legal fight with the Department of Veterans Affairs over a rule change denying him benefits related to Agent Orange exposure while serving in Vietnam. But the one thing that he and more than 1,500 other Navy “blue water” veterans with similar claims didn’t have was the ability to mount a class action challenge to the V.A.’s rule interpretation.
And so Haas, who served on the ammunition supply ship, the USS Mount Katmai, off the shores of Vietnam, went up the administrative ladder alone, losing his claim at the regional office level and his appeal at the Board of Veterans’ Appeals, but winning in the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims CAVC. That court found the V.A.’s “set-foot-on-land” requirement for presumptive Agent Orange exposure-a 2002 policy change after more than a decade of granting the presumption to all veterans who earned the Vietnam Service medal-”inconsistent with prior, consistently held agency views, plainly erroneous in light of its interpretation of legislative history, and unreasonable as an interpretation of VA’s own regulations.”
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