Injured Iraq veterans sue US over healthcare

SAN FRANCISCO -- The US Department of Veterans Affairs was accused yesterday in a lawsuit of "shameful failures" in providing medical and mental health care to injured troops returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

According to a 73-page lawsuit, which is proposed for class-action status on behalf of hundreds of thousands of veterans, "The VA's outmoded systems for providing medical care and disability benefits [have been overwhelmed by] the huge influx of injured troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan."

In particular, lawyers for the plaintiffs say the VA is "structurally unsuitable" for dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder, which the lawsuit calls a signature problem of veterans of the current ongoing wars. Symptoms of the disorder, the suit says, include intense anxiety, persistent nightmares, depression, uncontrollable anger, and difficulties coping with work, family, and social relationships.

About 1.6 million men and women have served in the two countries. A recent report by a special Pentagon Task Force found that 38 percent of soldiers and 50 percent of National Guard members coming home from Iraq or Afghanistan have mental health issues, ranging from post-traumatic stress disorder to brain injuries.

Only 27 of the agency's 1,400 hospitals have inpatient post- traumatic stress disorder programs, the plaintiffs' lawyers said.

"A number of veterans have committed suicide shortly after having been turned away from VA facilities either because they were told they were ineligible or because the wait was too long," the lawsuit states.

The case was filed as a proposed class action on behalf of hundreds of thousands of veterans. The named plaintiffs are two veterans advocacy groups, Veterans for Common Sense, based in Washington, D.C., and Veterans United for Truth, based in Santa Barbara. The defendants include outgoing VA chief R. James Nicholson, several other ranking VA officials, and US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

The lawsuit, prepared by a half dozen lawyers led by Melissa Kasnitz of Disability Rights Advocates in Berkeley and Gordon Erspamer of Morrison & Foerster, a large San Francisco law firm, does not seek monetary damages. Instead, it is designed to stop the VA from systematically denying what it asserts are valid claims filed by injured veterans.

Veterans' entitlement to benefits under US law are being violated by the VA, according to the lawsuit. In addition, the plaintiffs' lawyers assert that the procedures the VA uses to handle claims and appeals of denied claims violate the veterans' constitutional rights to due process of law under the Fifth Amendment and their right to petition for redress, guaranteed by the First Amendment.

Moreover, the suit contends that the VA "has consistently presented misleading statistics," falsely understating the length of time it takes to decide a claim, the number of veterans who need mental health services, and the amount of money the agency needs to meet its obligations to veterans.

"Because of those failures, hundreds of thousands of men and women who have suffered grievous injuries fighting in the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are being abandoned," the complaint states.

"The VA's motto, taken from Abraham Lincoln's second inaugural address, is 'to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and orphan,' " Kasnitz said. "The VA is not living up to its motto or its obligation to care for our disabled veterans."

Co-counsel Sidney Wolinsky said the suit was unprecedented in its scope, seeking dramatically to transform the way the VA operates. The agency's system for deciding claims filed by injured veterans has "largely collapsed" and is mired in a backlog of 600,000 claims, many of which have been pending for years, the suit asserts.

"At a time when troops remain in harm's way in both Iraq and Afghanistan, veterans have . . . been exposed to a systemwide pattern of abusive and illegal administrative processes," the suit says, warning that "unless systematic and drastic measures are instituted immediately, the costs to these veterans, their families, and our nation will be incalculable, including broken families, a new generation of unemployed and homeless veterans, increases in drug abuse and alcoholism, and crushing burdens on the health care delivery system and other social services in our communities."