Court Opinion

ID: 9494245
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:32:50.826964+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:56:17.998985
License: Public Domain

MAYER, Chief Judge,
dissenting.
I would remand Sanchez-Benitez’s claim for neck pain. The Secretary argues that the language of 38 U.S.C. §§ 1110 and 1131 limiting compensation to “disability resulting from personal injury suffered or disease contracted in the line of duty ...” precludes the payment of compensation for “pain alone, without a diagnosed or identifiable underlying malady or condition.” The court accepts this conclusion. Sanchez-Benitez argues that the definition of “service-connected” in 38 U.S.C. § 101(16) only requires a disability and a temporal relationship between that disability and active service. The definition does not mention any requirement for a diagnosis of an underlying malady or condition. He also points to a Veterans Court’s decision which holds that “ ‘disability’ as used in § 1110 refers to impairment of earning capacity, and that such definition mandates that any additional impairment of earning capacity resulting from an already service-connected condition, regardless of whether or not the additional impairment is itself a separate disease or injury caused by the service-connected condition, shall be compensated.” Allen v. Brown, 7 Vet.App. 439, 448 (1995) (emphasis in original). He argues persuasively that service connection may be granted as long as the disability can be traced to service, even if the specific onset of the disability cannot be pinpointed. The court labels this argument a *1364“perplexing question, but not one that we need or can decide in this appeal.” Ante at 1361. The court then goes on to conclude that, even if freestanding pain is a compensable disability, such a claim must fail when there is not a sufficient factual showing that the pain derives from an in-service disease or injury. This standard raises the bar higher than set in Allen. I see no reason for this, and the court suggests none.
Sanchez-Benitez also points to 38 C.F.R. § 4.20, which states that “[w]hen an unlisted condition is encountered it will be permissible to rate under a closely related disease or injury in which not only the functions affected, but the anatomical localization and symptomatology are closely analogous.” The Veterans Court should have remanded to the board for a determination of whether Sanchez-Benitez’s neck pain impaired his earning capacity and whether there was an analogous condition to use as a baseline to rate his disability. Its denial of the neck pain claim for failure to prove a specific underlying malady or condition was, therefore, not in accordance with law, rule, or regulation.