United States Federal Circuit
Vanieken-Ryals v. Office of Personnel Mgmt., 2006-3260
A denial of former Veterans Administration employee's application for disability retirement benefits is reversed and remanded as the Office of Personnel Management applied an erroneous legal standard in its assessment of evidence offered to support the application, and the Merit Systems Protection Board repeated that error. It is legal error for either the OPM or MSPB to reject submitted medical evidence as entitled to no probative weight at all solely because it lacks so-called "objective" measures such as laboratory tests.
Appellate Information
- Decided 11/26/2007
- Published 11/26/2007
Judges
- MICHEL, Chief Judge., Before MICHEL, Chief Judge, LOURIE and MOORE, Circuit Judges.
Court
- United States Federal Circuit
Counsel
- For Appellant:
- John S. Grady, Grady & Hampton LLC, of Dover, DE, argued for petitioner.
- For Appellees:
- Michael S. Dufault, Trial Attorney, Commercial Litigation Branch, Civil Division, United States Department of Justice, of Washington, DC, argued for respondent. With him on the brief were Peter D. Keisler, Acting Attorney General, Jeanne E. Davidson, Director, and Bryant G. Snee, Assistant Director. Of counsel was Tara K. Hogan, Trial Attorney.