Source:
San Francisco ChronicleFeds ask judge to reject suit over treatment of combat vets
Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer
Saturday, December 15, 2007
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Under the current procedures, Erspamer said, the government "can deny health care to veterans coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan with impunity. ... If this court dismisses this case, there is no way that these claims will ever be adjudicated."
Conti, (U.S. District Judge Samuel Conti.) a World War II veteran and a judicial conservative during his 37 years on the bench, raised questions about the courts' authority over the dispute but did not say how he would rule on the government's dismissal motion.
The suit was filed in July by two organizations - Veterans for Common Sense and Veterans United for Truth - as a proposed class action on behalf of 320,000 to 800,000 veterans, or their survivors, claiming service-connected deaths and disabilities.
They focused on claims of post-traumatic stress disorder, increasingly common among returning troops. A Pentagon study group reported in June that about 84,000 veterans, more than one-third of those who sought care from the VA from 2002 through 2006, had been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress or another mental disorder.
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Read more:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/12/15/BA56TUU96.DTL