United States Federal Circuit

The Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims improperly rejected petitioners' claims seeking disability compensation for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) alleged to have resulted from sexual assaults that occurred during service, where: 1) the absence of a service record documenting an unreported sexual assault is not pertinent evidence that the sexual assault did not occur; and 2) the Board of Veterans' Claims and the Veterans Court may not rely on a veteran's failure to report an in-service sexual assault to military authorities as pertinent evidence that the sexual assault did not occur.

Appellate Information

• Decided 09/30/2013
• Published 09/30/2013

Judges

• DYK

Court

• United States Federal Circuit

Counsel