Robert v. Posey v. Eric K. Shinseki

I fully concur in the Court’s decision, but I write separately to express my concern over the central issue in this case.

It has become clear to me that VA somewhat routinely holds correspondence from claimants that it determines, sometime after receipt, are Notices of Appeal to this Court. As a result, in far too many cases, the Court receives the Notice of Appeal from VA only after the 120-day appeal period has expired, permitting the Secretary to then move to dismiss the appeals for lack of jurisdiction. See, e.g., Rickett v. Shinseki, 23 Vet.App. 366 (2010) (VA forwarded appellant’s…