articles - Federal circuit court

FEDERAL CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS CITES NVLSP’S VETERANS BENEFITS MANUAL AS AUTHORITY FOR VETERANS LAW

Federal courts always include in their written decisions citations to authorities of law that support the court’s rulings. Usually these citations are to one or more statutes, regulations, or past court decisions. But sometimes, the courts cite well-recognized treatises as support for their rulings.

In its March 2009 decision in Holton v. Shinseki, 557 F.3d 1362 (Fed. Cir. 2009), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit cited to both a statute and NVLSP’s Veterans Benefits Manual for the legal proposition that in order to receive disability compensation, a veteran must generally show, among other things, that it was at least as likely as not that he suffered an injury or contracted a disease while in service.

The 2009 edition of NVLSP’s Veterans Benefits Manual is now available.