Bargsley Lawsuit

As many as 1,000 injured U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Navy combat veterans may have been discharged from the military without millions of dollars in disability benefits to which they are entitled. Lawyers from NVLSP and co-counsel Crowell & Moring LLP filed a class action lawsuit, Bargsley v. United States, in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims to try to help these wounded warriors.
 
In their legal complaint, the plaintiffs assert that the Department of the Navy failed to promptly implement a Department of Defense (DoD) directive requiring it to determine if disabilities leading to the medical separation of sailors and U.S. Marines were “combat related.” This determination controls certain federal disability benefits to which medically separated veterans are entitled.
 
The DoD directive at issue implemented a law which Congress enacted in 2008. That law, 10 U.S.C. § 1212(d), entitles servicemembers who are medically separated to both military and Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) disability benefits if the service branch determines that the disability which led to the separation was “combat-related.” Prior law prohibited veterans from receiving both military and VA disability benefits for the same disability – regardless of whether it was combat-related.
 
Shortly after Congress amended the law in 2008, DoD directed the military services to make written determinations, whenever a servicemember was medically separated, as to whether the disability leading to the separation was combat-related. The U.S. Army and the U.S. Air Force promptly implemented this directive, but the U.S. Department of the Navy failed to do so.
 
As a result, attorneys believe hundreds of U.S. Marines and sailors who were discharged during this time period were denied thousands of dollars in compensation that they were owed due to their combat-related injuries.
 
If you were medically separated from the U.S. Department of the Navy or U.S. Marine Corps after January 28, 2008 and believe that the VA may be wrongly reducing your monthly VA payments to recover the military severance payment you received upon discharge, call NVLSP’s toll-free telephone number at 1-877-345-8387.