man police court kind of a carpenter appearing on behalf of those corps now the veterans court in this case heard in affirming that the board's decision that the v a s payment of attorney's fees to ms cornell was improper the v a s decision of may eighth two thousand and twelve which is in the appendix that sixty seven to sixty eight was that miss core now met all of the requirements of statute regulation based upon a correct interpretation of rights notices the veterans court in this case correctly decided that the board's finding that the a case did not involve a simultaneously contested claim was incorrect and set that aside that should have been the end of the appeal the reason that that should have been the end of the appeal is is that there is only one decision by the v a that can be appealed relative to contesting whether or not ms cornell was entitled to those fees the v a originally decided that she was entitled to those fees waited sixty days for a notice of disagreement no notice whatever and this circumstance the d m v wasn't allowed to get feet what would have happened hypothetically if he had hired another lawyer another way that was charging right and so we had two lawyers client yes there is your honor i believe that my client was entitle to the fees and that the v a made the correct decision but the answer your question relative to whether or not it would make any difference if there was a competing attorney the answer is no because there is only one way to contest a favorable decision by the v a or an unfavorable decision on the entitlements the fee is under fifty nine zero four and the issue of entitlement to fee is whether or not you meet the requirements to have the  gives me the past the benefits that were withheld paid by the v a to the representing attorney or the v a made a decision that decision is subject to review only under the provisions of seventy one o five capital a whether going to some of the other attorneys or not you are you familiar with this circumstance occurring with any sort of frequency i mean i'm just trying to get a sense of how often something like this happens where experience it happens often i'm not sure how often compares to the total number of cases but the reality is that because these cases take so long there is often  discharge of the attorney either with raul as in this case or a discharge out of frustration by the veteran and moving on to potentially another counsel or two being represented by the  organization what needs to be understood here is that the law is controlled under fifty nine zero four fifty nine zero four dictates when the secretary is obligated to withhold from past due benefits and pay a fee the secretary made a final one a decision that ms cornell was entitle to that feet there is a procedure for the veteran to contest whether that was a correct decision and back and look at it its rating decision on its own without any objection by the veteran or the like and issues a new decision we don't think they have the authority to do that no they do not run and the writ and the reason that come on i doubt is why are you don't think that that was correct we're getting a new one are you going to say that that that's an illegitimate exercise of the secretary's authority yes i have your honor and the reason for that is that this court decided in terrific hypothetical because that there in lies the problem the v a has since the scates decision been on the road is that it's their responsibility to deal with fede decisions in the first instance that's what happened here and there are you know can you answer my question if the d m makes a mistake he's the the portion of the past few benefits that owing to the attorney to the wrong attorney how did he personally s your money from the i have no remedy and the reason that i have no remedy is is that my fee agreements are not withholding for your premiums under fifty nine also don't of what my hypothetical let's assume it's the same kind of what this court has said that with respect your honor you are not focused on is the mason case that says that when you file such a notice of disagreement even if it's accepted out of time then the send it back to the v a to issue a statement of the case telling your point she owes them this money that i mean we can do that well but you can't do that with respect your honor because the v a took action after the board decision in this case to make mr moberly whole so both mr moberly has been paid and this cornell has been paid there is no longer anything to send  below when we were put on notice before the oral argument that the v a had not given notice to the da vinci but the fact of the matter is is all of that all that would have done is to send back then until they actually try to recoup the money because there is a decision by the veterans cork that says that the board correctly decided that the issue and the board did not correctly decide the issue because the board had no jurisdiction but there's a real injury and so they try to get the money back you're out there most certainly is an injury there is a published opinion with my client's name on it that says that she improperly accepted a fee that bought based upon a made decision that told her that she met all of the requirements the sixty days went by and after the sixty days they sent her the money and what how is she further to pursue and that she was withdrawing from further representation that is what is this other letter after there is some discussion after she received the money that he signed a new  appellant close my file many months earlier contacted my life by phone and asked us what was going on because she had received money after realizing her on her that she said she wanted to send people work for me to sign to get her back and making my story that i heard had a representative would not sign anything that was the last time we heard from her and that is representation by mr moberly of what was supposedly said in a telephone conversation that is not documentation of what she said other  than and this is apparently strictly from mr moberly about what happened in a phone call not that it's something that is documented where she did that but even if she did do that it had that phone conversation the point here is is that there is a final decision that was up until the december two thousand and twelve letter not subject to a notice of disagreement ms cornell had no knowledge of a money now that there is a final decision that says she was entitled to the money that i don't decision has been in may of two thousand and twelve and she was not put on notice of a notice of disagreement with that decision i opposition to the original decision which was presumptively final until there was a notice of disagreement the plain language of seventy one of five b says that upon the filing of a notice of disagreement all parties an ethics people in the state of illinois based upon the decision of the veterans court that decision of the veterans court is not final until this court act and this court must find as a matter of law that their decision was final may two thousand and twelve decision was final you cannot there is no statutory provision or regulatory provision no matter how intuitive it would be that the v a would be able to do that there is no statute or regulation that provides that and what i was trying to explain to judge whose own to go was this that since the skates decision in two thousand and two that imposed this burden on the v a to make these types of decisions the v a has not promulgated a single regulation to describe the responsibilities of either the v a or the veteran or the attorney so there is total confusion in this system and if we don't go by the rules that are set out by statute there is no guidance to an attorney or to a veteran as to how to proceed with this and there isn't a basis for the conclusion that my client  to attorney fees to be paid from her former clients t r u award because she did not raise or in any way contribute to that award that decision is it's not it's a factual finding that's not subject to this court's review but i merrily that they that da was intending to withhold the twenty percent from his his award nothing happens and then there's a notice that that that the money is actually going to be paid to her that notice was not served on this new representative but as mr cornell conceded below and as the veterans court found it was timely if you went by the actual notice to representative so any suggestion that that notice of disagreement by mr moberly was untimely and therefore somehow cut off the cliff the deal stream it's just simply not the premise of this and that's the only premise and twelve subsequently and that's a letter where she says essentially you need to resolve this with your with your with your former client subsequent to that in february the v a issues a new decision that says  ve determined that you're not eligible miss cornell filed a timely notice a disagreement of that both parties have the opportunity to present their arguments about what you know who whether she was in fact eligible any procedural that the v a took at that point has been has been fully remedied by ms cornell's ability to make the arguments to the v a to represent she herself as an attorney she was represented by counsel and so then we end up with th at being appealed to the board there's really no question anderson gates and under this court's jurisdiction that the board had authority to to review whether ms cornell was eligible for these fees the same as the the veterans court so to the extent that mrs cornell is arguing that there's some sort of problem with the simultaneously contested claim procedure that question is answered by mr mobilise nor is this agreement that the aro found with timely there's cornell continues to challenge whether she is in fact eligible for these fees but assuming that the court were to affirm the veterans court's decision then the view could be free to use whatever debt collection procedures are available does happen on occasion because there are you know there's a few agreement that's been filed with with the v a and there's not necessarily any you know so sometimes the attorney will tell the v a i'm no longer representing this person or i'm waving the fees or something like that were you know as in the case with skates the you know you had two attorneys representing the same client during various portions of the claim and then there is a question about which you know which  gets why percentage of what's reasonable and what's what's not reasonable is clearly not reasonable for an attorney who has who had terminated the attorney client relationship and whose work contributed in no way to you claim to continue to to to three ways i mean if there's a history of the spectrum have been what is what what does someone to do to make sure they don't get caught up in this in there if they prevail they won't get attorneys fees do they have to go back historically to all  it would i mean arguably we would discourage anyone from ever taking a case because even if they prevail they're going to not get the fees because somebody else is going to get i'm not sure that that's any you know and  think is just a consequence of of practicing law and the client who has freedom to to change their counsel of if they want to be part of the purpose of waiting those sixty days before the twenty percent is released to the right and i guess i'm just just to add a little further context to to the court's inquiry we didn't talk about is of course that aside from the regional office having jurisdiction to make initial eligibility determinations the office of the government suggests that any misstep procedure misstep was remedied but what the government doesn't do is to cite that any authority for that proposition there is no statute there is no regulation that was either  by congress or promulgated by the secretary that addresses the type of procedural misstep that happened in this case and that procedural misstep was that she was put on notice that she met the requirements and was entitle to the field and then was sent the free within that under the appropriate statute which is seventy one hundred five capital a that statute requires a notice of disagreement within sixty days no notice of disagreement was received by the v a within that sixty days so the v a released the money that is their policy and their procedure but there is no statutory authority for doing that that then as you correctly observe treif judge prose is that policy problem in this case with handling cases on an ad hoc basis to try to correct the problem on the fly there is a particular is a specific statute and once that statute is triggered by the receipt of a notice of disagreement and they received a notice of its agreement they were obligated to send all parties that interest including my client ms cornell a statement of the case that statement of the case then required within thirty days a completion of an appeal with a substantive appeal or a v a form nine that never happened there was no statement of the case in response to that notice of disagreement that was originally sent her skin that it was sent in by the a v they don't the statement of the case that was issued in this case was the result the ms cornell having to go to the veterans court for rhythm and they miss compel them to issue a statement a case in response to her notice of disagreement and instead they gave a note a statement of the case in response to mr mobley's notice of disagreement even if that statement a case were valid mr mobley in order to procedurally complete his appeal had to file a substantive appeal within thirty days of the receipt of that ms cornell did on her issues pointing out what she filed the notice of disagreement with and that mr moberly has not filed a substantive appeal so procedurally this case ended when the board incorrectly determined that this was not a simultaneously could occur simultaneously contested claim the veterans court got that right the vet prince court then proceeded where they had no authority to proceed because there was not a decision that was properly appealed to implicate under seventy one zero for the jurisdiction of the board for the board to make a decision in order to do that they had to have a statement of the case and a v a nine following the notice of disagreement that they accepted out of time therefore the v s o attempt to do this didn't succeed and now mr cornell is faced in position as are all other attorneys of not knowing what the rules are other than understanding that seventy one zero five controls these types of cases and it either does or it doesn't if it does the veterans court was wrong thank you thank you very much i think outside the cases