No, the second request is not considered denied. For a claim to be officially denied, the VA has to give the veteran some kind of clue that they looked at it and decided against it. Here, the VA's reason for denying the pension—that his disability wasn't permanent—had nothing to do with a claim for a medical injury. Because the VA never mentioned the injury claim, Ingram had no reason to think it was denied and no reason to appeal it. Therefore, his 1986 request was still 'pending' and waiting for an answer all those years.

Yes, the VA was wrong to say Mr. Ingram needed to use legal terms and specifically say the VA did something wrong in his 1986 claims. The VA has to carefully read claims from veterans without lawyers and figure out what benefits they might qualify for, even if the veteran doesn't know all the legal rules. The VA should have looked at what health problems and causes Mr. Ingram actually wrote about in 1986, not just the exact words he used. The Court erased the VA's decision and sent the case back for the VA to look at Mr. Ingram's 1986 claims again the right way - focusing on the problems and causes he mentioned to see if they suggested a claim for benefits from the VA surgery, and if so, whether the VA ever actually denied that claim or if it was still pending in 1992.

No, the Regional Office decision does not constitute a final denial; the unaddressed claim remains pending. A reasonably raised claim is not denied sub silentio unless the RO decision provides the claimant with sufficient notice that the claim was considered and adjudicated. Here, the 1986 RO decision denied a claim for a non-service-connected pension because Ingram's disability was not permanent. This gave no indication as to the disposition of a potential § 1151 claim for compensation, which does not require permanency and involves entirely different legal elements. Precedent from cases like *Deshotel* and *Andrews*, which found implicit denials, are distinguishable because in those cases, the RO's decision on a related matter (e.g., assigning a disability rating less than 100%) contained enough information for the claimant to deduce that another claim (e.g., for total disability) was also being rejected. The VA's duty to sympathetically read a pro se claimant's filings would be undermined by a broad doctrine of sub silentio denials, as it would illogically expect an unsophisticated claimant to recognize and appeal an unstated denial of a claim they may not have even known how to articulate properly.

Yes, the Board erred by applying an overly strict standard inconsistent with the Secretary's duty to sympathetically read pro se pleadings. The Board incorrectly required Ingram to demonstrate legal sophistication by alleging negligence or lack of proper skill and expressing explicit intent to seek § 1151 benefits. The duty to sympathetically read exists precisely because pro se claimants are not presumed to know the law or articulate claims based on legal elements. The Secretary must look at the conditions and causes stated in a pro se pleading to determine if they reasonably suggest a claim for benefits, regardless of legal terminology used. The Board also erred by limiting review to the "four corners" of Ingram's submissions, rather than considering them in toto. The Board's decision is vacated and remanded for readjudication applying the proper standard - whether Ingram's 1986 filings, sympathetically read based on a lay person's expectations, raised a § 1151 claim, and if so, whether it remained pending until the 1992 claim was filed.

Robert J. Ingram v. R. James Nicholson

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