Court Opinion

ID: 9383882
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-03-31 15:01:04.667035+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:17:48.818675
License: Public Domain

Case: 22-1610    Document: 23     Page: 1   Filed: 03/24/2023

        NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.

   United States Court of Appeals
       for the Federal Circuit
                  ______________________

                  DAVID FORSYTHE,
                   Claimant-Appellant

                             v.

       DENIS MCDONOUGH, SECRETARY OF
              VETERANS AFFAIRS,
               Respondent-Appellee
              ______________________

                        2022-1610
                  ______________________

    Appeal from the United States Court of Appeals for
 Veterans Claims in No. 20-4449, Judge Grant Jaquith.
                 ______________________

                 Decided: March 24, 2023
                 ______________________

     FALEN M. LAPONZINA, ADVOCATE Nonprofit Organi-
 zation, Washington, DC, argued for claimant-appellant.

     RETA EMMA BEZAK, Commercial Litigation Branch,
 Civil Division, United States Department of Justice, Wash-
 ington, DC, argued for respondent-appellee. Also repre-
 sented by BRIAN M. BOYNTON, MARTIN F. HOCKEY, JR.,
 PATRICIA M. MCCARTHY; JULIE HONAN, Y. KEN LEE, Office
 of General Counsel, United States Department of Veterans
 Affairs, Washington, DC.
Case: 22-1610     Document: 23     Page: 2    Filed: 03/24/2023

 2                                   FORSYTHE   v. MCDONOUGH

                   ______________________

     Before CHEN, MAYER, and HUGHES, Circuit Judges.
     Opinion for the court filed by Circuit Judge HUGHES.
      Dissenting opinion filed by Circuit Judge MAYER.
 HUGHES, Circuit Judge.
      David Forsythe appeals a decision from the United
 States Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims holding that
 the pre-decision evidentiary notice he received from the De-
 partment of Veterans Affairs was legally sufficient. Be-
 cause we find that the agency did not have to wait until he
 submitted a claim to provide an evidentiary notice, and
 that, regardless, the timing of the notice was not prejudi-
 cial, we affirm.
                               I
     Mr. Forsythe served in the United States Navy from
 July 1987 to July 1990. In February 1988, he suffered a
 contusion to his left shoulder after falling. X-rays taken at
 the time of injury showed no dislocation or any other in-
 jury, and he was prescribed Motrin. By March 1988, his
 shoulder condition had resolved. Mr. Forsythe’s separation
 examination report in 1990 showed no residual shoulder
 conditions, and Mr. Forsythe reported that he had no is-
 sues with his left shoulder at a 1993 examination.
     Nearly 30 years later, in March 2019, Mr. Forsythe vis-
 ited a private physician for left shoulder pain and dysfunc-
 tion. Mr. Forsythe reported that he injured his shoulder
 during his military service by lifting a 60-pound generator
 onto a helicopter, and based on that statement, the private
 physician concluded that his shoulder injury was more
 likely than not related to his service. There is nothing in
 the record showing that Mr. Forsythe received medical care
 for a shoulder injury resulting from lifting the generator
 while he was in the Navy. Soon after, Mr. Forsythe applied
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 FORSYTHE   v. MCDONOUGH                                     3

 for disability benefits for a left shoulder condition by sub-
 mitting a claim on VA Form 21-526EZ. Before submitting
 his claim, he signed to certify that he had “received the no-
 tice attached to this application titled, Notice to Vet-
 eran/Service Member of Evidence Necessary to
 Substantiate a Claim for Veterans Disability Compensa-
 tion and Related Compensation Benefits.’” Appx54 (em-
 phasis removed). As part of his application package, Mr.
 Forsythe included the 2019 medical report and opinion
 from the private physician, as well as a statement in sup-
 port of his claim identifying the evidence he was submit-
 ting.
     After submitting his claim, Mr. Forsythe underwent a
 VA medical examination. The agency examiner determined
 that Mr. Forsythe’s shoulder condition was less likely than
 not related to his service because (1) his X-rays at the time
 of injury were normal, (2) Mr. Forsythe reported that his
 injuries were resolved at a follow-up visit, and (3) there was
 no indication of any chronic or recurring shoulder issues in
 1990 or 1993 service examinations. After considering both
 the VA examination and the private medical examination,
 the agency denied Mr. Forsythe’s claim, and he appealed to
 the Board of Veterans’ Appeals. The Board denied service
 connection for left shoulder pain and dysfunction, finding
 no nexus between Mr. Forsythe’s current shoulder condi-
 tion and his service. In particular, the Board found the VA
 examination report and service records to be more proba-
 tive than the private medical report.
     Mr. Forsythe appealed to the Veterans Court. Along
 with challenging the denial of service connection, Mr. For-
 sythe argued that he received inadequate notice about
 what evidence was needed to substantiate his claim in vio-
 lation of 38 U.S.C. § 5103(a) and 38 C.F.R. § 3.159(b)(1).
 But the Veterans Court rejected that argument, noting
 that “the law ‘requir[es] only generic notice,’ not an indi-
 vidualized explanation of the specific evidence required for
 each case.” Appx10 (alteration in original) (quoting Wilson
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 4                                    FORSYTHE   v. MCDONOUGH

 v. Mansfield, 506 F.3d 1055, 1059–60 (Fed. Cir. 2007)). The
 Veterans Court provided links to both the March 2018 and
 September 2019 versions of VA Form 21-526EZ, and added
 that the “form notice explained what a veteran needed to
 do to submit a claim” and “described the information and
 evidence the veteran needed to submit based on the claim
 processing chosen by the veteran.” Appx10, n.3. The Veter-
 ans Court found that the content of the notice satisfied the
 agency’s statutory duty to assist under § 5103(a). Accord-
 ingly, the Veterans Court found that there was no error by
 the Board.
     Mr. Forsythe filed a motion for reconsideration or, in
 the alternative, a panel decision. Along with challenging
 the adequacy of the content of the notice, Mr. Forsythe ar-
 gued that the agency erred by providing notice on the claim
 form itself, rather than waiting until after he had submit-
 ted his claim to provide a more individualized notice of the
 evidence required to substantiate his claim. On January
 12, 2022, a three-judge panel ordered that the single-judge
 decision remain the decision of the court. This appeal fol-
 lowed.
                               II
     Our review of decisions from the Veterans Court is lim-
 ited by statute. “[A]ny party to the case may obtain a re-
 view of [a Veterans Court] decision with respect to the
 validity of a decision of the Court on a rule of law or of any
 statute or regulation . . . or any interpretation thereof . . .
 that was relied on by the Court in making the decision.”
 38 U.S.C. § 7292(a). Except to the extent that an appeal
 presents a constitutional issue, we lack jurisdiction to re-
 view any “challenge to a factual determination” or any
 “challenge to a law or regulation as applied to the facts of
 a particular case.” Id. § 7292(d)(2). We review statutory
 and regulatory interpretations of the Veterans Court de
 novo. Gazelle v. Shulkin, 868 F.3d 1006, 1009 (Fed. Cir.
 2017).
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 FORSYTHE   v. MCDONOUGH                                      5

                               III
     Mr. Forsythe’s arguments require us to interpret 38
 U.S.C. § 5103(a), the statute that directs the agency to pro-
 vide evidentiary notice, as well as the corresponding enact-
 ing regulation, 38 C.F.R. § 3.159(b)(1). We first review the
 statute and regulation to determine whether the agency
 was required to wait until after Mr. Forsythe submitted his
 claim to provide notice, and then whether, if such a timing
 requirement existed, providing that notice on the claim
 form constitutes prejudicial error.
                               A
     Starting with the statutory text, the current version of
 38 U.S.C. § 5103(a) does not require the agency to wait to
 provide notice until after it receives a veteran’s application.
 Before it was amended in 2012, § 5103(a) read as follows:
     Upon receipt of a complete or substantially
     complete application, [the VA] shall notify the
     claimant . . . of any information, and any medical
     or lay evidence, not previously provided to [the VA]
     that is necessary to substantiate the claim.
 38 U.S.C. § 5103(a)(1) (2006) (emphasis added). When this
 section was amended, Congress struck the bolded lan-
 guage. The statute now reads:
     [The VA] shall provide to the claimant . . . by the
     most effective means available, including elec-
     tronic communication or notification in writing, no-
     tice of any information, and any medical or lay
     evidence, not previously provided to [the VA] that
     is necessary to substantiate the claim.
 38 U.S.C. § 5103(a)(1). This amendment explicitly removed
 the requirement that the agency provide notice after receiv-
 ing a complete or substantially complete application from
 the claimant.
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 6                                   FORSYTHE   v. MCDONOUGH

      It is also telling that Congress removed this temporal
 requirement following testimony from the agency about the
 inefficiencies of providing notice after a claim was filed. A
 House Committee Report discussing the proposed lan-
 guage explains that the amendment “would remove the re-
 quirement that the [notice] be sent only after receipt of a
 claim, thereby allowing VA to put notice on new claim
 forms,” and would encourage veterans “to take additional
 time to find, procure, and submit private medical evidence
 before submitting their claim.” H.R. Rep. No. 112-241, at 9
 (2011). The report also emphasizes that “it is imperative
 that when VA moves the [notice] onto the application form
 itself, it continues to keep in place a system that acknowl-
 edges receipt of all submitted claims.” Id. (emphasis
 added). This legislative history shows that Congress explic-
 itly envisioned that the agency would put the notice on the
 claim application form, and by consequence, claimants
 would receive and review this notice before submitting
 their claim.
     Despite the change in statutory language and its asso-
 ciated legislative history, Mr. Forsythe argues that the
 agency violated § 5103(a) by providing him with an eviden-
 tiary notice on the claim form, rather than waiting until
 after he submitted his claim to provide such notice. In do-
 ing so, Mr. Forsythe relies on the repealed language of the
 statute, as well as the legislative and regulatory history,
 from before the 2012 amendment was enacted. Appellant’s
 Br. 11–15. Mr. Forsythe does not provide any reason for
 this court to consider the pre-amendment version of the
 statute, nor can he. Mr. Forsythe filed his claim in 2019,
 several years after the new statute went into effect. We
 therefore find that the agency was not required by statute
 to wait until Mr. Forsythe had submitted his application to
 provide him with the evidentiary notice.
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 FORSYTHE   v. MCDONOUGH                                    7

                              B
     Mr. Forsythe also argues that the enacting regulation
 requires the agency to wait until after a claim is submitted
 to provide an evidentiary notice. Section 3.159(b)(1) reads
 as follows:
      [W]hen VA receives a complete or substan-
     tially complete initial or supplemental claim,
     VA will notify the claimant of any information and
     medical or lay evidence that is necessary to sub-
     stantiate the claim . . . .
 38 C.F.R. § 3.159(b)(1) (emphasis added). Although the
 bolded temporal language is still present in the current
 version of the regulation, this language stems from the pre-
 2012 version of § 5103(a), Duty to Assist, 66 Fed. Reg.
 45,620, 45,630 (Aug. 29, 2001) (Final Rule), and has not
 been substantively amended since the statute was
 amended.
      As discussed above, Congress amended § 5103(a) to re-
 peal the temporal requirement after hearing testimony
 from the agency about the delays under the old claims sys-
 tem. And the regulatory history following the amendment
 shows that the agency intended for the regulations to re-
 flect the amended statute. For example, in a 2013 notice of
 proposed rulemaking about the new claim forms, the
 agency explained that “[t]o the extent there is any incon-
 sistency between VA’s current notice and assistance rules
 and the current statute as amended by Public Law 112-
 154, the statute clearly governs.” Standard Claims and Ap-
 peals Forms, 78 Fed. Reg. 65,490, 65,495 (Oct. 31, 2013).
 The agency then said that it was “examining whether 38
 C.F.R. [§] 3.159 should be amended to account for the new
 statute, but [it] believes the statute is clear authority for
 the changes affecting how VA provides notice [as proposed]
 here.” Id. Thus, it is unlikely that the agency intended to
 independently re-impose the very temporal limit that
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 8                                   FORSYTHE   v. MCDONOUGH

 Congress repealed. Instead, the regulatory history shows
 that this provision is outdated. 1
                              IV
      Even if the regulation imposes an independent tem-
 poral requirement on the agency to provide notice after a
 claimant submits an application, its failure to send the no-
 tice after receipt of a claim is harmless error. The content
 of the notice Mr. Forsythe received was sufficient as a mat-
 ter of law, and furthermore, Mr. Forsythe does not explain
 why his claim application was impacted by when he re-
 ceived the notice. Thus, any error resulting from Mr. For-
 sythe receiving the notice “too early” cannot be prejudicial.
     First, Mr. Forsythe argues that, by providing the notice
 directly on the claim form, the agency was unable to “re-
 view . . . the application and accompanying evidence to de-
 termine what is missing, [and issue] a notice tailored to the
 Veteran’s claim . . . .” Appellant’s Br. 14. In other words,
 Mr. Forsythe seeks an individualized notice tailored to his
 claim. But we squarely rejected that requirement in Wil-
 son. There, we held that neither § 5103(a) nor § 3.159(b)
 required the agency to provide an evidentiary notice tai-
 lored to each individual claim because the statute requires
 “only generic notice.” Wilson, 506 F.3d at 1059–60. Mr. For-
 sythe received such a notice and certified that he received
 that notice. Mr. Forsythe asks us to ignore Wilson because

     1    We do not need to decide whether the regulation
 imposes an independent temporal requirement because, as
 discussed in the next section, there could be no prejudicial
 error from sending the notice too early. That being said, it
 has now been over ten years since Congress amended
 § 5103(a) and since the agency expressed a potential need
 to amend the regulation. To avoid further confusion, we
 urge the Secretary to amend this regulation to reflect the
 statute.
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 FORSYTHE   v. MCDONOUGH                                    9

 it was decided before Congress amended § 5103(a), but we
 have reiterated this holding after the amendment, as well.
 See, e.g., Russell v. McDonald, 586 F. App’x 589, 590–91
 (Fed. Cir. 2014) (nonprecedential). Accordingly, because
 the agency did not have to provide Mr. Forsythe with an
 individually tailored evidentiary notice, the notice that Mr.
 Forsythe received was legally sufficient.
     Second, Mr. Forsythe does not explain why his applica-
 tion was hindered by receiving the evidentiary notice too
 early. For example, Mr. Forsythe explains that “[h]e would
 have submitted private records,” Appellant’s Reply Br. 12,
 but Mr. Forsythe did submit records from a private medi-
 cal examination despite receiving the notice before submit-
 ting his claim. Mr. Forsythe also claims that he “would
 have gathered and submitted additional evidence to sub-
 stantiate his claim that he previously was unaware the VA
 would accept.” Appellant’s Reply Br. 12. But he does not
 explain specifically why receiving the notice early pre-
 vented him from collecting and submitting the evidence he
 had. If Mr. Forsythe wanted to submit more evidence in
 support of his claim, the timing of when he received the
 notice could not have, for example, prevented him from fil-
 ing a supplemental claim and asking the agency to gather
 evidence from other private providers through Form 21-
 4142. See Supplemental Claims, U.S. Dep’t of Veterans
 Affs., https://www.va.gov/decision-reviews/supplemental-
 claim (last visited Mar. 14, 2023). Thus, we see no circum-
 stance in which there could have been prejudicial error re-
 sulting from Mr. Forsythe receiving the notice too early.
     Because the notice Mr. Forsythe received was legally
 sufficient, and because receiving the notice early could not
 have had any bearing on how Mr. Forsythe handled his
 claim, we conclude that any error resulting from receiving
 the notice as part of the claim application form was harm-
 less.
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 10                                FORSYTHE   v. MCDONOUGH

                             V
      We have considered the rest of Mr. Forsythe’s argu-
 ments and find them unpersuasive. As a result, we affirm
 the Veterans Court’s decision finding that the agency sat-
 isfied its pre-decision notice requirement.
                       AFFIRMED
                          COSTS
 No costs.
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         NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.

    United States Court of Appeals
        for the Federal Circuit
                   ______________________

                    DAVID FORSYTHE,
                     Claimant-Appellant

                               v.

        DENIS MCDONOUGH, SECRETARY OF
               VETERANS AFFAIRS,
                Respondent-Appellee
               ______________________

                         2022-1610
                   ______________________

    Appeal from the United States Court of Appeals for
 Veterans Claims in No. 20-4449, Judge Grant Jaquith.
                 ______________________

 MAYER, Circuit Judge, dissenting.
      If the Department of Veterans Affairs (“VA”) is to fulfill
 its duty to serve veterans injured in the line of duty, see 38
 U.S.C. § 1110, it must, at a minimum, provide clear and
 timely notice regarding how to file and substantiate a claim
 for service-connected disability benefits. On this front, im-
 plementation of 38 C.F.R. § 3.159(b)(1), the VA’s regulation
 related to its responsibility to notify a veteran of the evi-
 dence necessary to develop a claim, falls far short of the
 mark. That regulation, in relevant part, provides:
     [W]hen VA receives a complete or substantially com-
     plete initial or supplemental claim, VA will notify
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 2                                   FORSYTHE   v. MCDONOUGH

     the claimant of any information and medical or lay
     evidence that is necessary to substantiate the claim
     (hereafter in this paragraph referred to as the “no-
     tice”). In the notice, VA will inform the claimant
     which information and evidence, if any, that the
     claimant is to provide to VA and which information
     and evidence, if any, that VA will attempt to obtain
     on behalf of the claimant.
  Id. (emphasis added).
      By its plain terms, section 3.159(b)(1) says that after
 the VA receives a veteran’s claim for benefits, it will send
 notice of any information or medical or lay evidence that is
 necessary to substantiate that claim. It is undisputed,
 however, that the VA did not send such notice after receipt
 of David Forsythe’s claim, but only attached the notice to
 VA Form 21-526EZ, the standard form used by veterans to
 file disability claims. In other words, although its own reg-
 ulation requires the VA to send the notice after the receipt
 of a veteran’s claim, the agency only provided it at the start
 of the claims process.
      On appeal, the government does not dispute that the
 VA’s practice of only providing notice prior to the receipt of
 a claim is inconsistent with the plain language of section
 3.159(b)(1). It attempts to brush aside the VA’s non-com-
 pliance with its own regulation, however, by asserting that:
 (1) if there is an inconsistency between a statute and a reg-
 ulation an agency has issued pursuant to that statute, the
 statute controls; and (2) since section 3.159(b)(1)’s require-
 ment that the VA send notice after the receipt of a claim is
 inconsistent with 38 U.S.C. § 5103(a)(1), that statute con-
 trols. See Appellee’s Br. 15–17. The fundamental flaw in
 this argument is that nothing in the language of the cur-
 rent version of section 5103(a)(1) is inconsistent with send-
 ing notice after the receipt of a veteran’s claim. That
 statute, in relevant part, states:
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 FORSYTHE   v. MCDONOUGH                                    3

     [T]he Secretary shall provide to the claimant and
     the claimant’s representative, if any, by the most
     effective means available, including electronic com-
     munication or notification in writing, notice of any
     information, and any medical or lay evidence, not
     previously provided to the Secretary that is neces-
     sary to substantiate the claim. As part of that no-
     tice, the Secretary shall indicate which portion of
     that information and evidence, if any, is to be pro-
     vided by the claimant and which portion, if any, the
     Secretary, in accordance with [38 U.S.C. § 5103A]
     and any other applicable provisions of law, will at-
     tempt to obtain on behalf of the claimant.
 38 U.S.C. § 5103(a)(1).
     While section 5103(a)(1) spells out, in general terms,
 what the VA needs to include in the notice it provides to
 veterans, it does not specify when that notice should be pro-
 vided. Accordingly, the government’s argument that the
 VA need not comply with the timing requirement of section
 3.159(b)(1) because it is inconsistent with section
 5103(a)(1) falls flat.
      The government notes that section 5103(a)(1) previ-
 ously began with the phrase “[u]pon receipt of a complete
 or substantially complete application,” 38 U.S.C.
 § 5103(a)(1) (2008), but that Congress eliminated that
 phrase when it amended the statute in 2012. See Appel-
 lee’s Br. 9–10. The government further notes that certain
 statements contained in the legislative history of the 2012
 amendment support the view that it was intended to elim-
 inate the requirement that the VA send notice after the re-
 ceipt of a claim. Id. at 10 (citing H.R. Rep. No. 112-241, at
 9 (2011)). Thus, in the government’s view, Forsythe, the
 veteran here, is not entitled to rely on the plain language
 of section 3.159(b)(1) regarding the timing of the VA’s no-
 tice because the legislative history of the 2012 amendment
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 4                                   FORSYTHE   v. MCDONOUGH

 to section 5103(a)(1) indicates that Congress intended to
 eliminate the requirement of post-claim notice.
     The short answer to this argument is that this intent
 did not explicitly make it into the law, and a veteran should
 not be forced to compare and contrast different iterations
 of a statute and conduct a thorough study of its legislative
 history in order to divine the interpretation of an imple-
 menting regulation. Rather, he should be entitled to as-
 sume that the VA means what it says when it states, in
 section 3.159(b)(1), that notice regarding what further evi-
 dence is necessary to substantiate a claim will be sent after
 receipt of the claim. See, e.g., Comer v. Peake, 552 F.3d
 1362, 1369 (Fed. Cir. 2009) (explaining that “[t]he VA dis-
 ability compensation system is not meant to be a trap for
 the unwary, or a stratagem to deny compensation to a vet-
 eran who has a valid claim, but who may be unaware of the
 various forms of compensation available to him”).
     Importantly, moreover, even assuming that Congress
 intended that the 2012 amendment would eliminate the re-
 quirement that the VA send notice after receipt of a claim,
 the government points to nothing in the relevant legisla-
 tive history suggesting that Congress intended to prohibit
 the agency from doing so. Accordingly, even viewing sec-
 tion 5103(a)(1) through the prism of the legislative history
 cited by the government, the statute is not inconsistent
 with a choice by the VA to implement a policy to provide
 notice even in the post-claim period.
      Finally, apart from the timing issue, there are signifi-
 cant questions as to whether the VA’s standard notice,
 from a substantive perspective, is sufficient to apprise vet-
 erans of the evidence necessary to bring a successful claim
 for disability benefits. In Wilson v. Mansfield, we held that
 while section 5103(a)(1) does not “require[] specific notice
 of the missing evidence with respect to a particular claim,”
 the notice provided by the VA must nonetheless “identify
 the information and evidence necessary to substantiate the
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 FORSYTHE   v. MCDONOUGH                                     5

 particular type of claim being asserted by the veteran.” 506
 F.3d 1055, 1059 (Fed. Cir. 2007) (emphasis added). How-
 ever, the notice attached to VA Form 21-526EZ covers
 claims for twelve different types of VA benefits, most of
 which have distinct evidentiary requirements, making it
 difficult for a veteran to ascertain precisely what kind of
 evidence must be submitted. See Mayfield v. Nicholson,
 444 F.3d 1328, 1333 (Fed. Cir. 2006) (explaining that sec-
 tion 5103(a)(1) requires the VA to issue notice “in a form
 that enables the claimant to understand the process” for
 obtaining disability benefits). Furthermore, while the VA’s
 notice refers to “lay evidence,” it does not necessarily con-
 vey, in plain terms, that a claim for disability benefits can,
 in certain circumstances, be supported by statements from
 those with whom a veteran served as well as statements
 from a veteran’s relatives and friends. See Buchanan v.
 Nicholson, 451 F.3d 1331, 1333, 1337 (Fed. Cir. 2006) (not-
 ing that the veteran had “submitted several affidavits from
 lay witnesses, including his relatives, acquaintances, and
 a sergeant who led the unit to which [the veteran] was as-
 signed in 1973,” and explaining that if “the lay evidence
 presented by a veteran is credible and ultimately compe-
 tent, the lack of contemporaneous medical evidence should
 not be an absolute bar to the veteran’s ability to prove his
 claim of entitlement to disability benefits based on that
 competent lay evidence”).
     Forsythe contends, moreover, that the standard notice
 issued by the VA is “prohibitively dense,” noting that it was
 composed using a very small, nine-point font and contains
 seven pages of single-spaced lines. Appellant’s Reply Br. 7.
 He further asserts that many deserving veterans are de-
 terred from filing claims because the standard notice is
 “complicated, overwhelming, confusing, [and] visually dif-
 ficult to read” and fails to clearly explain the different re-
 quirements for the various types of available VA benefits.
 Id. at 8.
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 6                                 FORSYTHE   v. MCDONOUGH

     I would remand this case for the VA to apply its regu-
 lation.