may please the court mr i'm a cost acknowledges that he must demonstrate intent to apply for benefits and it does not mean however that he must demonstrate specific intent to claim each medical condition within that application that is what you mean by the specific intent i guess there's there's a range do you think it's sufficient that he just say i had intended benefits or do you think that he needs to have any degree of specificity identifying the part of the body the nature of the injury i mean maybe he could say i intend to see benefits for everything demonstrated in my medical records the attached there are a lot of different ways i could see this working out but i guess i don't understand your line between intent and specific intent with respect to the particular injury or disease that he's going to seek benefits for yes your honor we believe that intent lives in one specific part of a claim and that's the intent to show an application for general benefits and i think that's memorialized very well in the secretary's own regulation reply one fifty five dollars b where it describes intent as seeking a general benefit and no need to that language was and then they're right that is correct or are believe it was not in the pre i'm just using that as an example to show that even the circuitry acknowledges that the intent goes to the application for benefits and not to the so i guess i mean i think i want to focus i think might just mean disability and or death compensation or pension or dependency nothing for that if might mean but benefit only the class of benefits sought not anything at all about the basis within the disability category and i guess in preparing for this argument i've been trying to get a grip on whether that is the correct reading or not it's clearly not in the reading in the veterans court for twenty five years i'm not sure we've ever actually address them your honor this court has not addressed that this concept of intent to specify back to hodge and schroeder roberson moody some ranch puts the onus on the board to explain what's reasonable raised by the record and i think that if we start talking about those i guess this is now i guess pushing back a little bit in the other direction those cases all i mean say none of them say if you file an application and say i want benefits but don't point to anything including not even pointing to a particular medical record that it is enough if they are both findings in the medical record a reference to an underlying condition we haven't gone that far and i'm not asking the court to go that far what we're asking is to require the board to examine what's reasonably raised by the record and not just limit it to what the better happens in terms of medical conditions because you can have a variety of scenarios you could have a scenario that your father just described you can have another scenario where a veteran just sends in medical records of p t s d without any indication to the regional office or to the board what he wants or she wants done with those is the veteran seeking non survivors connected disability pension is the veteran seeking service connected disability compensation are they seeking as a private records that they're seeking reimbursement i think that that's what we're ultimately when i read cases like roberson and some russian movie is it saying to the board consider all this look at this make a decision as to what is reasonably raised by the record and in the example your honor cited where the all you have is just something sent in it doesn't specify a specific  certain that the mental health condition now we're not specifically coming to this court and asking this court to decide what the scope of that one thousand nine hundred and seventy two claim what we're asking the court to decide the legal standard by which the board should assess that and we're asking this court to tell the board that intent to ident by intent to a claim a medical condition specifically mental health is not part the exclusive part of that reasonably raised assessment certainly the board could consider that as a component application he doesn't himself submit medical records right correct and so the v a goes and gets these are all air force medical treatment records they're not being treatment because you know he was just out of the military and all this treatment was was in service correct and he would then have seen these medical records in i mean would he be getting copies or only the aro or not i would say is a general rule that the veteran does not get those copies in my practical experience and i and i know the court can rely on this but in my practical experience that information is not shared and in fact the veterans court has recently decided that the duty to assist is not require the v a to produce documents related to the claim that we make anything of it's i guess it's a fairly striking fact that he applies for benefits and i guess may have seventy two in november of seventy two he gets a decision a decision that says yeah you're all serious connected to service zero disability and then he doesn't appeal to be make any of the anything of the fact that at that point and for the next three and a half decades he never says goodness i have this you know psychiatric related condition isn't that somehow telling that he didn't seem to think so anywhere near the time of the original application certainly there are i would have preferred that the fact that he didn't though i don't think says it could say a number of things as you can see from the records he had some significant mental health issues when he left service he had been treated in inpatient psychiatric treatment in service he had been treated with librium he had been treated with value it's not entirely clear what his state of mind was at the time he filed his claim or at the time he received that decision he may never have received it he certainly may never have known what to do with it or he may have not been in a state of mind to be able to deal with it at that time the ultimately did get service connection for a mood disorder while in two thousand and ten it was service connected for the mood disorder and that decision specifically related it back to those medical records in  of the regional office had failed to consider his mood disorder claim from one thousand nine hundred and seventy two and the component of his parkinson's that was depression he had to mental health conditions going on at this time he had the one that the mood disorder that relates back to service and he had the depression that was secondary to the parkinson's and so he had to appeal both of those because both of those were implicitly denied in the two thousand and ratings decision and it was in two thousand and thirteen that the agency came back and granted service connection for the mood disorder at one hundred percent disabling based on the one thousand nine hundred and seventy two service medical records he was later service connected for parkinson's in two thousand and fifteen and it a medical opinion looked to see if there was any but none of them relate to anything psychiatric none of them relate to depression or mood disorder or any sort of thing so the form back and the application for bench compensation or pension had this why which is you you need to here list any sickness or disease or injury for which you are seeking a claim he could have said i am seeking a claim for all injuries or benefits listed in my v a medical records and maybe that would have been a better scenario for you because the medical records didn't fact talk about a mood disorder but he identified with specificity what he was seeking the claim for and it doesn't include any psychiatric disorders so how does that specific in fact i'm suggesting that his level of specificity may be what dooms him here he was so specific he told the v a my left foot is the problem my also is the problem and due to that i don't see how i can nail fault the v a for failing to have considered this a claim for mental health benefits which is what you asked me to do the st thing i would say two things that you're are is the st thing i would say is when i'm talking about a general financial benefits what i'm talking about is disability compensation versus a non service connected pension vs a request for reimbursement vs service connection of cause of death or are you different classes of benefits that the v a monitors and compensates for secondly we don't know exactly christ intended or knew at that time in terms of what his condition was for example he mentioned also and because throughout service all schools or his owner was treated at the same time as his mental health condition was treated with the same the mental health condition the constant well that if that were true that would be a question of fact that we don't have the authority to review if the government read all sorts and understood that to only be his stomach condition as opposed to his dormant condition in this mental health that would be a question of fact or an application of law the fact that wouldn't be a question of how do i define claim under the statute the regulations so if even if you're correct that would not be within the authority of this court and that's we're not asking the court to make that review what we're asking this it please the court we ask that this court either dismissed mr la casa purely for lack of jurisdiction or affirm the determination of the veterans card starting with the jurisdictional issue overcome the jurisdictional bar by claiming that the veterans court in the board required a specific intent on the part of mr low cost to apply more mental health benefit but that is not the case on as we stated in our groups the board in fact that you don't you don't actually need an indication of conditions that condition particular intent yes you're under the legal that's a legal question about what one of the regulations i guess the in existence with its language about what a substantially complete application means which unlike one hundred and fifty five a refers to the benefit claimed and the medical conditions on which it is based yes your honor and i do it require anything at all about the basis for a request for disability compensation it sure looks on its face like all it is saying is just on  then i think it's undeniable there's language in there about benefits conditions but i'm not sure what to do when the entire case is presented under one thousand five hundred and fifty five a and and tell me if i'm wrong but have we turned to veterans court decisions which as as your counterpart indicates has at least since brannon and one hundred and ninety eight so help but i'm not sure we ever had and i haven't seen from from you either a statutory or regulatory analysis no such such language and it means yes your honor however i and i understand that this is a veterans court decision the veterans part of our koski to talk about the language of identifying a body part or a symptom and although this court has strange to me that there is this regulatory language that you all have not address either in by relating it to anything else in the regulations like it's three point one or three three or three forty three point five or anything in the statute to say here is why discusses just the thought the theory of a claim in general and that claim is actually based in statutory authority for example thirty eight dollars u s c five dollars basically says that except as otherwise provided a claimant has responsibility to present and support a claim for present a claim or for mental or mood disorder as your honor touch more mentioned he presented a claim for five very specific physical conditions none of which  that to me is similar to the seller's decision which i believe was decided by the veterans court recently and in which the government has docketed a notice of appeal to that issue i believe is in front of this court and in cellars right now however  exactly is happening in salaries however we would disagree that even a general statement of intent to seek benefits for anything that occurred in a in service would be enough for then just any mention in the medical record to bring the claim within the scope to to bring those references in the medical records within the scope of the claim but again here there is not even that year there were five specific claims of rosa benefit and so what i'm trying to figure out is what do those regulations require what regulation is it used to cover and clearly they're quite requiring a level this level of specificity what your honor again as the board how there is not a high level of specificity required there just needs to be some description or identification of a body part even in layman's language or then why wouldn't it for why wouldn't veterans court has held although i'm not sure this court has the regulations don't require the v a to go through the medical records on i think they have turned it in on an unguided safari and conjure up conditions that the applicant is not claiming for and indeed a policy matter the i understand that the process is not adversarial and worse and the v a supposed to sympathetically and broadly construed the claims by the veteran but there still have to be a claim  saying otherwise would essentially contravene the statutory intent and make it an unworkable burden for the v a to have to come through every applicant's medical records based upon just a general statement that he's looking for disability  benefits for anything that's noted in his medical records to figure out through his medical records on every single thing that this veteran has potentially been diagnosed so let me get this straight your concern is a lot with a veteran found to have a mental health disorder that absolutely stems from his nine hundred and seventy two service and that has rendered him one hundred percent disabled your concern is not that he would be disadvantaged or have trouble articulating after he is in the midst of this mental health crisis with particularly on the form your concern is that it would be problematic for the v a if they had to actually look in his medical records see that diagnosis and recognize that is the claim if he were to stay to you i am seeking benefits for everything in my medical records your concerned with the burden on the v a at that point what about the burden when the mentally disabled veteran who is seeking benefits yes your honor and we certainly understand that and that's why there is a sympathetic and liberal construction doctrine but there still has to be a claim here and again in mr low cost case she did not bring a claim even a general statement of intent and the benefits for for a mental or psychiatric disorder and the board actually did interpret his claims broadly at end giving him and there weren't and that there was no diagnosis in the section marked for a neurological and psychological findings but again here there is just no claim at all so while the question of general intent benefits  might be alive in a different case it is not so here and mr low cost provided no showing that he intended to seek a claim for psychiatric or mental benefits in one thousand nine hundred and seventy two through his claim for the five specific conditions and again the lord recognized the correct standards in again finding an earlier service connection or earlier affective date for his mood disorder in connection with this parkinson's disease because in that case even though again mr low cost and not specifically raised the claim the examiner found and the board adopted the finding that the psychiatric mood disorder was inextricably intertwined with the parkinson's disease and there is no reason to think that the board having articulated all the correct standards would have applied them one way and park and or as related to the parkinson's and another way as related to the also claim tell me what is the document on i think before you just told us that his discharge records recognize no form of mental health disorder of any times yet there's a box checked for yes for nervous trouble and i don't actually see any  list anywhere for any specific mental health except for depression i see depression apart from that i don't see is there any am i missing of a line item somewhere for mental health disorders or mood clinical evaluation there is a list of various types of items a few of which are marked abnormal such as abdomen and then if you look at the bottom there's a line for neurological and  series of looks like it was attached to his claim for benefits but i can't tell for sure i don't believe it was attached to his claim for benefits but the v a did pull and examined these records in deciding his nine hundred and seventy two  honor i would point out that that document for twenty two dollars not only mentions that mr all across is having a nervous trouble also mentions that he's taking value which which i don't know as a record the extent to which value that somebody has mental help or mental state of mind but it certainly suggests that a person does not have   it seems that those two things cannot co exist if the court limits the sympathetic reading of the scope of a claim to specific intent to claim a particular medical condition then it's going to run  afoul of a case like schroeder where the veteran did not include all theories in his claim and in fact there were theories unknown to the veteran and yet those are still supposed to be considered as part of the construction it will run contrary to moody where the veteran in that particular clay case did not claim specifically a mental health condition in a claim seeking a prostate condition yet the court held that the b b s most of sympathetically construe those pleadings limiting this to intent is going to specific intends to claim a particular medical condition is going to shift the burden to the veterans identify as per the st you know of it at that level of specificity i guess i'm inclined to think that the veterans court didn't actually do that but it's a veteran's court's decision is is as i read it perfectly understandable as saying tell us what you can be expected to know is which part of your body including the mind in the brain it is bothersome what the doctors call that  w is really we don't expect you to say that and so but you can even do that i don't think that the veterans court could say that because they're not able to make factual determinations in the st instance certainly they could review the boards the terminations of whether or not it did that they didn't reach that because they said the mr mccance fails to demonstrate how evidence relating to the old surge in the mental health condition constitute intent to claim not a general class of benefits but mental health conditions we would ask this