## Facts

- Kerry E. Shea served in the U.S. Air Force beginning in October 2006; her pre-enlistment exam reflected no psychiatric abnormality.
- In January 2007, she was diagnosed with adjustment disorder with anxiety and depressed mood.
- Days later, she was struck by a truck on base and suffered serious physical injuries.
- In May 2007, a Physical Evaluation Board found her orthopedic injuries compensable but did not treat her adjustment disorder as separately compensable.
- In October 2007, Shea filed a pro se VA benefits application expressly describing the truck accident and physical injuries; the application referenced and incorporated her service treatment records, which documented psychiatric symptoms and diagnoses.
- In 2008, Shea filed a separate claim expressly seeking benefits for a psychiatric disability.
- VA ultimately awarded service-connected benefits for both physical and psychiatric disabilities but assigned a 2008 effective date for the psychiatric award, denying an earlier effective date based on the 2007 filing.
- The Board of Veterans’ Appeals and the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims concluded the 2007 submission did not present an informal claim for psychiatric disability because it did not adequately identify that benefit.

## Issues

1. Whether the Veterans Court applied an unduly restrictive legal standard under pre-2015 38 C.F.R. § 3.155(a) when it held that Shea’s 2007 pro se application did not include an informal claim for service-connected psychiatric disability benefits.
2. Whether, for purposes of identifying the “benefit sought,” a pro se filing must be read in conjunction with medical or service records the claimant referenced or asked VA to consider.

## Decision

- The Federal Circuit vacated the Veterans Court’s decision and remanded.
- The court held that the Veterans Court used too restrictive a standard in reading the 2007 pro se application under § 3.155(a).
- The court required reconsideration of the 2007 filing using a sympathetic reading and considering the referenced service treatment records.
- The court did not decide in the first instance whether the 2007 filing, properly construed, constituted an informal psychiatric claim or what the correct effective date should be.

## Legal Principles

- Under pre-2015 38 C.F.R. § 3.155(a), an informal claim must “identify the benefit sought,” but the identification requirement is not a strict pleading rule.
- For pro se veterans, VA and reviewing courts must sympathetically read submissions to determine all reasonably raised claims.
- In determining what benefit a pro se filing identifies, the filing should not be read in isolation; it may be construed together with other submissions and with medical or service records the claimant referenced or requested VA to consider.
- A reviewing court errs by effectively requiring a pro se claimant to explicitly label a specific diagnosis in the application when the requested records could reasonably inform VA of the asserted class of disability.

## Conclusion

The Federal Circuit held that the Veterans Court improperly construed a pro se benefits application by demanding an overly explicit identification of a psychiatric claim, vacated the judgment, and remanded for reconsideration of whether the 2007 filing—read together with referenced service treatment records—raised an informal psychiatric-disability claim under § 3.155(a).


Shea v. Wilkie, 926 F.3d 1362 (Fed. Cir. 2019)