Opinion ID: 3065770
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Suicide Incident Briefs

Text: At a status conference, Veterans sought to compel discovery of suicide incident briefs — reports prepared by the VA following the suicide or attempted suicide of a veteran under VA care. The VA represented that there are 15,000 suicide incident briefs that would be subject to extensive redaction and argued that the redacted suicide incident briefs would be of little probative value. The district court asked Veterans what they would do with that information. Veterans responded: “I think it would potentially subject to analysis . . . to try to amalgamate the data across the system to show in practice how the procedures and policies that are in place with respect to mental health care, in fact, the small—.” The district court interjected “I don’t think I have any authority to talk about their policies,” and thereafter denied Veterans’s motion to compel production. Veterans claim that full discovery of all suicide incident briefs would have allowed them to establish links between the VA’s failure to comply with its policies and procedures and veterans’ suicides. Veterans, however, do not argue how they were prejudiced by the discovery ruling in the context of their specific APA and due process claims. There is no contention that the suicide incident briefs would have allowed Veterans to fulfill the APA’s statutory requirements for judicial review set forth at 5 U.S.C. § 706(1) and delineated in Norton. It is possible that access to the suicide incident briefs might have provided Veterans with additional useful material in support of their due process claim concerning veterans’ inability to appeal administrative scheduling decisions that delay necessary mental health care. However, such material is not necessary for Veterans to make out a valid claim — indeed, as we hold above, their eligibility for relief under Mathews has already been established by the district court’s factual findings. In light of our holding reversing and remanding this case to the district court for the entry of an appropriate order remedying the due process violation that Veterans have suffered VETERANS FOR COMMON SENSE v. SHINSEKI 6371 because of the VHA’s delay in the provision of mental health care, we conclude that it is unnecessary to address this discovery issue. B. Average Time for Processing PTSD Claims at the RO Level Veterans also sought to compel a response to their interrogatory requesting the average amount of time it takes to process PTSD compensation claims at the Regional Office level. During the trial, Veterans raised the issue with the district court. The VA represented that Michael Walcoff, then Deputy Under Secretary for Benefits in the Department of Veterans Affairs,40 would testify as to what data the VA has and why the VA cannot produce the data sought by Veterans. After Walcoff testified, Veterans filed a motion to compel by letter contending that “Walcoff’s testimony, although consistent with the explanation provided by counsel for Defendants, does not support the ‘not available’ interrogatory answer provided by Defendants.” The following day, April 29, 2008, the court denied Veterans’s motion to compel. Veterans contend that the district court abused its discretion in refusing to compel an answer to that interrogatory. We fail to see how this specific information would bolster Veterans’s APA or due process claims. Veterans’s statutory claims are foreclosed for the reasons we discuss above. Veterans’s due process arguments concerning delays in claims adjudication focus on the time it takes to appeal benefits determinations. At the RO level, Veterans claim only that the failure to provide more formal procedures for adjudicating benefits claims and the VA’s use of a procedure to reduce benefits awards system violates due process. Veterans make no argument as to how further information on delays in processing PTSD claims at the RO level would support their due process claims 40 Walcoff was appointed Acting Under Secretary for Benefits in the Department of Veterans Affairs on Jan. 4, 2010. 6372 VETERANS FOR COMMON SENSE v. SHINSEKI regarding RO-level procedures. In the absence of any showing of how this additional information would have strengthened Veterans claims, we affirm the district court’s ruling on this issue.