Birdeye Middleton v. Shinseki

The medical experts who designed the VA disability rating system for veterans with service-connected disabilities had no difficulty in understanding that different people with the same illness do not always present the same symptoms, and that different people with the same illness do not always respond in the same way to the same drugs. They wisely built two foundational concepts into the rating schedule to provide for these understandings.

First, they stated at the outset that: “This rating schedule is primarily a guide in the evaluation of disability resulting from all types of diseases and…