WASHINGTON — Some combat injured sailors and Marines may have been cheated out of millions in veterans disability payments because of paperwork mistakes made by the services, according to a class-action complaint brought against the military this week.
Officials from the National Veterans Legal Services Program filed the lawsuit Wednesday on behalf of three combat veterans, but said they believe more than 1,000 may have been affected.
Bart Stichman, joint executive director of NVLSP, said the men lost about $20,000 in disability benefits each because service officials failed to note their injuries were combat related. Without that designation, Department of Veterans Affairs officials were forced to withhold disability payouts from the men for several years.
Navy and Marine Corps officials directed requests for comment to the Department of Justice, which would defend the services in the suit. Department of Justice officials said they are reviewing the case, but did not offer any rebuttal to or explanation for the alleged errors.
Stichman estimates the mistakes cost veterans a combined $20 million in lost disability payments.
“Someone was asleep at the wheel on this,” he said. “We’re not seeing this problem with the Army or the Air Force. But the Navy and Marine Corps didn’t do what they were supposed to.”
The problem stems from a 2008 change in how veterans disability benefits were awarded.
Marine Corps veteran Randy Howard, one of the plaintiffs named in the lawsuit, received more than $24,000 in a payout from the service in 2008 after officials determined his traumatic brain injuries and post-traumatic stress disorder — the result of two combat tours in Iraq — made him unable to stay on active duty.
Under the old rules, any servicemember separated for serious injuries would receive a lump-sum payout from the military, but their veterans disability checks would be delayed until the VA “recouped” that same amount.
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