Hey, Veterans out there, Travis Studdard back here with another video.
Today, I want to talk to you about something that you may not know that much about, which
is a concept known in VA law as The presumption of Soundness.
That may be a little bit confusing, but let me go through that with you, and it may affect
your situation, if you had a denial based on some condition that pre-existed your military
service.
So what is The Presumption of Soundness?
Let me just read to you what that is according to VA law.
It says, "Every Veteran shall be taken to have been in sound condition when examined,
accepted, and enrolled for service, except as to defects, infirmities, or disorders noted
at the time of the examination, acceptance, and enrollment."
Let me put that in layman's terms to you.
If when you entered service, and you had an exam upon entry, and that examiner did not
find anything wrong with you, VA cannot later say that your condition pre-existed service,
because they didn't find it.
If they didn't find it, they don't get to deny based on that being something that pre-existed
service, because what the law is going to assume is if they don't find it didn't already
exist.
In other words, it arose later on.
Sometimes I do see decisions where a Veteran is denied on a particular disability that
they claim disability compensation for, because VA says, "Well, you already had that when
you entered service."
If that is the case, then it has to be on that entry exam.
If it's not, then The Presumption of Soundness applies.
Now, VA can rebut that presumption, but they have to have good, clear, unmistakable evidence
that you, in fact, had this prior to you going into service.
How do you trigger that presumption of soundness?
You show that you had a disability or a disease that existed during your time of service.
If you do that, then the presumption is triggered.
At that point VA is very limited in their ways that they can deny it.
They can, again, go back then to your entrance exam and find evidence that you, in fact,
already had this, that the examiner found it and then say, "Well, you can't claim this
benefit now, or you can't receive for it because we found it when you came in, but we admitted
you to service anyway."
Again, this is a hugely powerful tool in your VA disability claim.
It gets wrongly applied, or not applied, as the case may be, by VA lots of times, and
I've seen some cases of that.
If you are denied for a pre-existing condition, whether they say you're born with it, or that
you just had this develop at some time in your life prior to military service, you need
to look further in that and question, "Does the presumption of soundness apply?"
It's probably a good situation to have an attorney look at it for you, as well, in that
denial situation because, again, when we get into these presumptions and where they shift
and can be rebutted by only particular kinds of evidence, again, that's where it may benefit
you to have a second set of eyes looking at that for you.
If you'd like to do that, go to our website, winyourvetclaim.com.
We've got articles on this and other topics related to disability compensation claims,
and I hope this one helps.
Again, I'm going to come back with a couple of more videos, because we could really dive
deep into this concept and, again, it's such a powerful tool to have in your arsenal when
you're facing VA and they sometimes wrongly deny your claim.
Hope you liked it, if so give it a thumbs up and check out the others.
Thanks a lot.