[00:00:00] Speaker 01:
is 172329 Wade versus Wilkie.

[00:00:41] Speaker 01:
We're ready when you are, Mr. Carpenter.

[00:00:43] Speaker 04:
Please, Court.

[00:00:44] Speaker 04:
Kenneth Carpenter.

[00:00:44] Speaker 04:
Define your argument to chemical formulas.

[00:00:50] Speaker 03:
I can assure you I'm going nowhere near that.

[00:00:55] Speaker 03:
Kenneth Carpenter appearing on behalf of Mr. Joseph Wade.

[00:00:59] Speaker 03:
The issue in this case, Your Honor, is whether or not the decision of the Veterans Court relied upon a misinterpretation of a VA regulation, specifically 38 CFR 3.

[00:01:09] Speaker 03:
excuse me, 4.16 parens A. I direct the court's attention to page two of the court's decision at appendix two of the joint appendix.

[00:01:23] Speaker 03:
It is clear there that the board relied exclusively upon

[00:01:28] Speaker 03:
evidence from a VA examiner about Mr. Wade's ability to perform sedentary employment.

[00:01:36] Speaker 04:
Are you disagreeing with the board's weighing of the opinion of that examiner?

[00:01:40] Speaker 03:
No, Your Honor, because an opinion about sedentary employment goes to the legal test, the standard for entitlement to an extra schedule or total rating.

[00:01:52] Speaker 03:
The term or phrase sedentary employment or the ability to perform sedentary employment

[00:01:58] Speaker 03:
does not exist in 4.16.

[00:02:00] Speaker 01:
So therefore they can't do it because it doesn't exist there?

[00:02:06] Speaker 01:
You're saying that use of sedentary employment as a factor is precluded by the regulation?

[00:02:13] Speaker 03:
Unless the sedentary employment is tied to the earning ability under sedentary employment.

[00:02:21] Speaker 03:
416 is a regulation that is structured by the VA that deals with not the inability to work in totality, but the disability that arises to prevent... I didn't understand what you said at the beginning of this, which is not unless what?

[00:02:43] Speaker 03:
You can rely on sedentary... Unless it is employment which is more than marginal.

[00:02:49] Speaker 03:
The substantially gainful employment.

[00:02:53] Speaker 03:
And substantially gainful employment is described in the regulation.

[00:02:57] Speaker 04:
Isn't that just a subset?

[00:03:00] Speaker 04:
So substantially gainful sedentary employment would be a subset of substantially gainful employment.

[00:03:06] Speaker 04:
No.

[00:03:08] Speaker 03:
It would be in the broad generic sense that would be a correct statement, your honor.

[00:03:13] Speaker 03:
But in the context of 416, 416A

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specifically describes marginal employment, which then permits the veteran to earn up to the poverty level for a single person.

[00:03:27] Speaker 03:
A mere statement that a veteran is capable of sedentary employment is no more valuable than the statement that he is capable of employment.

[00:03:38] Speaker 03:
It is capable of more than marginal employment that is required.

[00:03:44] Speaker 03:
But the board made the

[00:03:46] Speaker 02:
the finding, the legal finding here that he is capable of obtaining substantially gainful employment, didn't it?

[00:03:57] Speaker 02:
It did, your honor.

[00:03:58] Speaker 02:
But that finding... And the court... Sorry?

[00:04:02] Speaker 02:
...found that there was evidence to support that.

[00:04:05] Speaker 03:
Desk work without social interaction... Are you saying that the court applied a different standard than the board?

[00:04:14] Speaker 03:
No, I'm saying that the court in adopting the standard relied upon the board misinterprets the regulation.

[00:04:20] Speaker 02:
But the board said the evidence of record does not support a finding that due to the appellant's service-connected disabilities, he has an inability to obtain and retain substantially gainful employment consistent with his education and history.

[00:04:39] Speaker 02:
Part of that is a quote from the board.

[00:04:41] Speaker 02:
It's in, I'm looking at appendix page three in the board, a court's opinion, I'm sure you're aware of it.

[00:04:47] Speaker 02:
That's a correct legal standard, right?

[00:04:50] Speaker 02:
Whether or not he can obtain and retain substantially gainful employment with his education and history.

[00:04:56] Speaker 03:
That's correct, John.

[00:04:57] Speaker 02:
The board made a finding that he could.

[00:05:01] Speaker 03:
Yes, based upon evidence of the ability to perform sedentary employment.

[00:05:08] Speaker 02:
And the ability to perform sedentary employment... That sounds to me like you're quibbling with what evidence supports the board's rule finding.

[00:05:16] Speaker 03:
No, Your Honor.

[00:05:17] Speaker 03:
I am quibbling with the misuse of VA examiners to use a legal standard that does not appear in the regulation.

[00:05:26] Speaker 02:
The regulation does not... They're not using that legal standard.

[00:05:28] Speaker 02:
They're using the notion that they can gain

[00:05:31] Speaker 02:
meaningful sedentary employment as evidence that they can gain meaningful, gainful employment, aren't they?

[00:05:38] Speaker 03:
No, Your Honor.

[00:05:39] Speaker 03:
They are establishing an equivalence between the ability to perform sedentary employment with the ability to perform more than marginal employment.

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And those two are not equivalent.

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Any more than the ability to work and earn less than marginal employment, less than the poverty level,

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equals the inability.

[00:06:02] Speaker 02:
Well, I get what you're saying.

[00:06:04] Speaker 02:
I mean, if what they meant by sedentary employment was he can show up and work for minimum wage for two hours a week because that would limit his social interactions, that wouldn't meet the meaningful gainful employment standard.

[00:06:20] Speaker 02:
That's correct.

[00:06:21] Speaker 02:
But that doesn't seem to be the type of evidence that the examiner is talking about.

[00:06:24] Speaker 02:
I think they're talking more generally about he

[00:06:29] Speaker 02:
can sustain work in a desk job or a position where his social interactions are minimized.

[00:06:36] Speaker 02:
Aren't they saying when they use the word sustained, they may not be specifically using the word, you know, gainful employment above marginal and the like, but they're going through all this evidence and they're looking at it and so they're saying, yes, he has PTSD.

[00:06:52] Speaker 02:
They looked at his history at the Steelworkers and said, yes, he had problems with his supervisors.

[00:06:58] Speaker 02:
but he got along with his coworkers.

[00:07:01] Speaker 02:
If he's in a certain environment, he can work in a certain job.

[00:07:09] Speaker 02:
Isn't that what they're ultimately saying?

[00:07:11] Speaker 02:
And you're asking us to read the evidence differently.

[00:07:14] Speaker 03:
No, I'm not asking you to read the evidence differently.

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I'm asking you to examine the evidence to determine whether there is any evidence that connects with the legal standard in 416.

[00:07:23] Speaker 03:
The mere statement

[00:07:26] Speaker 03:
by the VA examiner that he is capable of performing sedentary work is not equivalent to the ability to earn more than marginal income.

[00:07:36] Speaker 03:
To get a sedentary job does not mean that that sedentary job will produce more than marginal income and there is no evidence in the record.

[00:07:46] Speaker 03:
Did he previously have work that was more than marginal?

[00:07:50] Speaker 03:
I'm sorry?

[00:07:51] Speaker 03:
Did he previously?

[00:07:53] Speaker 03:
Yes, he previously did and the question here

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is from the date that he made this application forward, after he left the 20 years in the steel industry, did his disability from that point limit his ability to, even in a sedentary environment, earn more than marginal earnings?

[00:08:14] Speaker 03:
And there is nothing in the record.

[00:08:17] Speaker 03:
What the VA is doing is using the back door to take its VA examiner to offer an opinion about a concept

[00:08:25] Speaker 04:
that doesn't exist in the regulation of sedentary employment and justify that because it's... Your argument seems to be that the VA must introduce evidence in some fashion of what sort of work, specific work, at what sort of specific pay the veteran can get.

[00:08:48] Speaker 03:
They have to establish a reasonable basis in the record.

[00:08:51] Speaker 03:
to conclude that if he found sedentary employment, A, he could maintain it, and B, he would earn more than marginal earnings.

[00:09:01] Speaker 03:
And why?

[00:09:03] Speaker 03:
Not to simply make the global statement that he is capable.

[00:09:08] Speaker 03:
Being capable, and that's the only conclusion.

[00:09:12] Speaker 03:
This court in Geib said that the role of the medical examiner is to assess the symptoms.

[00:09:18] Speaker 03:
But that's a factual question.

[00:09:22] Speaker 02:
I mean, you're not making some kind of argument that they have to, in every one of these TDIU cases, bring in a vocational expert, are you?

[00:09:33] Speaker 02:
I know that that argument, I don't know if you've pressed it, but it's certainly been pressed before, but I don't think it's ever been accepted by this court.

[00:09:43] Speaker 03:
Well, what I am suggesting is, Your Honor, that without vocational evidence,

[00:09:49] Speaker 03:
that there isn't evidence to meet the legal standard of the ability to earn more than marginal income.

[00:09:56] Speaker 04:
Supposing the initial VA examiner had said to him, what kind of work can you do that's sedentary?

[00:10:09] Speaker 04:
And asked him, how much does that pay?

[00:10:13] Speaker 04:
Does it pay more than the minimum wage?

[00:10:14] Speaker 04:
Would that have satisfied you?

[00:10:16] Speaker 03:
No, Your Honor.

[00:10:17] Speaker 03:
Because particularly when you're dealing with a psychiatric disability, we're talking about sustainability.

[00:10:25] Speaker 04:
But that psychiatric examiner is capable of determining that part.

[00:10:33] Speaker 03:
If he has a factual basis, yes.

[00:10:36] Speaker 03:
But that factual basis would have to be based upon some actual performance by the veteran.

[00:10:44] Speaker 03:
that the veteran has shown in this relevant period.

[00:10:49] Speaker 04:
Why?

[00:10:49] Speaker 04:
It's a fact finding.

[00:10:50] Speaker 04:
Why can't the examiner say, based on my expertise, I've talked to this individual, and he tells me he can do this kind of sedentary work, and it pays a sufficient salary.

[00:11:03] Speaker 04:
And based on my expertise, I determine that he is psychologically capable of doing that.

[00:11:10] Speaker 04:
I've asked him the right questions, and that's my determination.

[00:11:14] Speaker 03:
Why not?

[00:11:15] Speaker 03:
Well, this court said in Gieb that that's not the role of the medical examiner.

[00:11:20] Speaker 03:
That the role of the medical examiner is not to supplant the responsibility of the VA rating specialist.

[00:11:28] Speaker 03:
That that answer has to be an answer made by the rating specialist based upon the evidence.

[00:11:35] Speaker 03:
And that what the medical examiner does, according to this court's decision in Gieb, is to assess the symptoms

[00:11:43] Speaker 03:
describe what those symptoms do to impair or not to impair.

[00:11:49] Speaker 03:
Not to simply inquire of the veteran, but to look at the actual symptoms in the record of the severity, frequency, and duration of those symptoms and how they impact the ability to earn more than marginal income.

[00:12:06] Speaker 03:
And again, it's a two-step.

[00:12:08] Speaker 03:
It's to both get the job and to maintain the job, to secure and to follow.

[00:12:14] Speaker 03:
That is what is necessary.

[00:12:16] Speaker 01:
Is that second step?

[00:12:17] Speaker 01:
You've said that a few times.

[00:12:19] Speaker 01:
There are two steps.

[00:12:20] Speaker 01:
And one is that somebody has to make a determination that he will be able to sustain employment over a period of time.

[00:12:28] Speaker 01:
Is that a vocational or a medical determination?

[00:12:32] Speaker 03:
I believe it's a vocational determination.

[00:12:34] Speaker 03:
And I believe consistent with this court's decision in E. That doesn't seem like what you argued in your brief.

[00:12:38] Speaker 03:
That's not what I argued in my brief.

[00:12:39] Speaker 03:
I was answering the judge's question.

[00:12:42] Speaker 02:
So you don't think an expert psychiatrist trained in PTSD is qualified to opine on whether an individual's PTSD would prevent them from gaining and sustaining meaningful employment?

[00:13:00] Speaker 03:
no your honor i would do not believe that a psychiatrist or a psychologist would be able to make that opinion that is not their training that is not what they are they are required to assess and evaluate that's a very nicely they're training to note the severity of the ptsd and how it would impact those persons lives yes your honor but not how it would or would not affect the ability of a veteran with a psychiatric disability uh... qualifies for

[00:13:30] Speaker 03:
unemployability because they are unable to secure and follow substantial gainful occupation.

[00:13:39] Speaker 03:
And the VA doesn't define it, but does it by inference.

[00:13:45] Speaker 04:
What you're describing is the initial determination.

[00:13:50] Speaker 04:
When they make a determination of PTSD, some of the indicating factors for PTSD are those very things, inability to maintain relationship

[00:14:01] Speaker 04:
inability to maintain employment and so on, right?

[00:14:06] Speaker 03:
And the psychologist is the one who asked those questions.

[00:14:11] Speaker 03:
No, Your Honor, not as respects employment.

[00:14:14] Speaker 03:
There is nothing in the DSM that refers to employment.

[00:14:18] Speaker 03:
DSM criteria does not look

[00:14:21] Speaker 03:
to the veterans' ability to work.

[00:14:23] Speaker 03:
It looks to the presence of those symptoms and the severity of those symptoms.

[00:14:27] Speaker 02:
Let me ask you the other way.

[00:14:27] Speaker 02:
Let's assume we agree with you.

[00:14:29] Speaker 02:
Well, let's not assume that.

[00:14:34] Speaker 02:
Sometimes I do agree with you.

[00:14:35] Speaker 02:
Maybe not often, but let's talk about this vocational specialist.

[00:14:42] Speaker 02:
How would a vocational specialist have any training on whether PTSD can or can't

[00:14:50] Speaker 02:
prevent meaningful occupation.

[00:14:52] Speaker 02:
Isn't the effects of a mental illness precisely the providence of a psychologist or a psychiatrist?

[00:15:04] Speaker 02:
I'm not aware.

[00:15:05] Speaker 02:
I don't know what occupational therapists do.

[00:15:08] Speaker 02:
And it may be that they have additional training.

[00:15:11] Speaker 02:
But it seems to me you're asking for

[00:15:13] Speaker 02:
for some type of evidence that, one, the VA has never insisted on, nor has this court ever insisted on, and that I'm not sure they're qualified to give.

[00:15:23] Speaker 03:
Well, with respect, Your Honor, I don't think that the vocational expert that we're talking about is an occupational therapist.

[00:15:32] Speaker 03:
A vocational expert is an expert in what it takes to perform the requirements of a job.

[00:15:42] Speaker 03:
what it requires in order to maintain substantial equalization.

[00:15:47] Speaker 02:
So what is that?

[00:15:50] Speaker 02:
These individuals... You're baffling me, honestly.

[00:15:52] Speaker 02:
Who is that person?

[00:15:53] Speaker 02:
What are their qualifications?

[00:15:55] Speaker 02:
What is their background?

[00:15:56] Speaker 02:
What kind of degrees do they have?

[00:15:58] Speaker 03:
They have degrees in vocational training and vocational evaluation to evaluate a worker's ability to perform the tasks necessary

[00:16:11] Speaker 03:
to secure and maintain employment.

[00:16:14] Speaker 03:
And these individuals are used in every Social Security hearing to give the Social Security administrative law judge the expertise about the ability of an individual to perform the task required to maintain employment.

[00:16:35] Speaker 03:
Are they used in VA hearings?

[00:16:38] Speaker 03:
They are not used by the VA.

[00:16:40] Speaker 03:
They have been used by me and other practitioners for at least a decade.

[00:16:46] Speaker 02:
Do those people in the social security context... Yes.

[00:16:50] Speaker 02:
...opine on whether, because I assume PTSD gets raised outside of the VA context and social security as well, do they opine on whether a PTSD diagnosis affects

[00:17:05] Speaker 03:
Yes, although they are not looking at the diagnosis, they are looking at the symptomatology that is presented in the medical records.

[00:17:14] Speaker 03:
What it is about sleep impairment, what it is about nightmares, what it is about irritability, temper issues, the ability to become easily distracted, those are the kinds of things that they assess

[00:17:28] Speaker 03:
in terms of the requirement to do a 40-hour-a-week job in order to sustain that employment.

[00:17:38] Speaker 03:
Why don't we hear from the government?

[00:17:40] Speaker 01:
Thank you.

[00:17:52] Speaker 00:
Good morning, Your Honors.

[00:17:54] Speaker 00:
May it please the Court?

[00:17:57] Speaker 04:
So what kind of job should we actually be doing up here?

[00:18:02] Speaker 00:
So a couple of points, Your Honor.

[00:18:06] Speaker 00:
We did not actually get to address the language of the marginal employment statute in our brief, because it was actually raised into the reply brief.

[00:18:12] Speaker 00:
It wasn't raised before the board.

[00:18:14] Speaker 00:
It wasn't raised before the Veterans Court.

[00:18:16] Speaker 00:
However, the VA's interpretation of the way 4.16a is read is that marginal employment, this language, and I have it here in front of me, marginal employment shall not be considered substantially gainful employment.

[00:18:27] Speaker 00:
It's kind of a trigger where if you have a veteran who is, say, repairs toasters in their backyard and makes $500 a year doing that, that's not going to disqualify them from TDIU.

[00:18:38] Speaker 00:
It's going to say there needs to be more than that.

[00:18:40] Speaker 00:
If they were to make $12,000 a year, which is approximately the poverty threshold for an individual in 2017, then yes, that would be something, obviously, for them to consider as to whether or not they're entitled to TDIU.

[00:18:51] Speaker 00:
But marginal employment is not the legal standard that the board and the Veterans Court need to apply.

[00:18:56] Speaker 00:
It's as I believe Mr. Carpenter conceded and as he wrote into his brief, it's whether or not they're able to secure or follow substantially gainful occupation.

[00:19:04] Speaker 02:
Sure, but I mean, he does have some point that sedentary employment doesn't automatically equal more than marginal employment.

[00:19:13] Speaker 02:
You can have sedentary employment, I think you would agree, that is completely marginal.

[00:19:19] Speaker 00:
Yes, Your Honor, absolutely.

[00:19:21] Speaker 00:
The standard applied by the board and the court was not simply whether he could engage in sedentary employment.

[00:19:27] Speaker 00:
It was the medical opinion that he could engage in sedentary employment combined with his 30 years at US Steel.

[00:19:33] Speaker 00:
He retired in 1998.

[00:19:34] Speaker 00:
The records talk about the problems he had with his supervisors, that he got along well with his colleagues, that he does have some sleep interruption, but he does manage to get some sleep.

[00:19:44] Speaker 00:
And all of this was combined, along with his educational history, to reach the determination that he had not established that he could

[00:19:50] Speaker 00:
that he could not secure or follow a substantially gainful occupation.

[00:19:53] Speaker 02:
What about his point that psychiatrists or psychologists or those kind of examiners aren't competent to opine on vocational limitations?

[00:20:03] Speaker 00:
The VA would obviously disagree with that.

[00:20:06] Speaker 00:
And I believe as Mr. Carpenter conceded, the VA doesn't actually use occupational people to determine whether or not someone is able to engage in a certain occupation.

[00:20:16] Speaker 00:
Maybe they should.

[00:20:18] Speaker 00:
But that would be a sufficiency of the evidence argument that would need to be made before the board.

[00:20:23] Speaker 00:
And essentially that is the argument that Mr. Wade made to the Veterans Court was that they should have retained some sort of occupational professional to determine whether or not he could engage in this work.

[00:20:34] Speaker 00:
But they found that the board had properly relied on the evidence to determine that he was able to

[00:20:41] Speaker 00:
or they had not established she was not able to secure or file a substantial gainful occupation.

[00:20:47] Speaker 00:
And just a few other points.

[00:20:51] Speaker 00:
Mr. Carpenter argued that there was no vocational evidence considered by the board or the court.

[00:21:00] Speaker 00:
That argument is contrary to this court's holding in Smith v. Shinseki, which specifically held the VA is not required to do a market analysis or any sort of study as to whether or not

[00:21:10] Speaker 00:
whether or not there is what kind of jobs could actually be retained in the market.

[00:21:14] Speaker 00:
And so unless there are any other questions from the court, for those reasons, is what else?

[00:21:18] Speaker 01:
Is there a process?

[00:21:19] Speaker 01:
I mean, if you say that, and he comes back three years from now, and he shows you that he supplied for 15 jobs, and he hasn't been able to obtain one of them, is that probative?

[00:21:31] Speaker 01:
I mean, is that probative?

[00:21:32] Speaker 01:
I mean, when you apply for unemployment benefits, you have a requirement to look.

[00:21:35] Speaker 01:
But at some point, you can establish that you've looked in good faith.

[00:21:39] Speaker 01:
and it's not there.

[00:21:41] Speaker 00:
So according to this court's holding, there is not a requirement to do an affirmative analysis as to what jobs are available.

[00:21:48] Speaker 00:
I imagine if he were to reopen his request five years from now and to establish that sort of evidence, that would obviously be probative for the board to consider.

[00:21:59] Speaker 00:
Of course, the board cannot consider the effect of other disabilities.

[00:22:02] Speaker 00:
I believe Mr. Wade does have some disabilities which are not service-connected, but for which he does receive Social Security disability.

[00:22:07] Speaker 00:
And then also, of course, his age is not something they could consider.

[00:22:10] Speaker 00:
But if they were to able to kind of remove those factors, yes, I imagine that would be probative evidence, again, for the board to consider and the regional office.

[00:22:18] Speaker 01:
So age plays no role.

[00:22:20] Speaker 00:
Yes, according to 4.16A, they may not consider the age of the veteran for the purposes of TDIU.

[00:22:25] Speaker 00:
Obviously, for pension benefits and other issues, it may be considered.

[00:22:31] Speaker 00:
And so for those reasons, we ask that the court affirm the decision of the Veterans Court.

[00:22:35] Speaker 00:
Thank you.

[00:22:43] Speaker 03:
To be clear, Your Honor, I do not believe a fair reading of the regulation uses marginal employment as a trigger.

[00:22:51] Speaker 03:
Marginal employment is a specific definition that is provided by the VA to give guidance to

[00:22:58] Speaker 03:
both veterans and their representatives, as well as their own adjudicators, as to how you make this call, how you make a determination as to whether or not they're entitled to this benefit.

[00:23:09] Speaker 04:
What about it, Mr. Carver?

[00:23:11] Speaker 04:
In the real world, you represent a lot of folks, do you have certain stances where somebody's shunted off saying you can obtain more than marginal employment and you come back at a later point and say, look, this guy can't hold a job.

[00:23:26] Speaker 04:
Yeah, he can get one.

[00:23:27] Speaker 04:
He keeps getting fired.

[00:23:28] Speaker 03:
Yes, you are.

[00:23:30] Speaker 03:
But then they submit these individuals to examination by VA examiners, and they make this hypothetical determination that has no factual basis in the record.

[00:23:42] Speaker 03:
What I'm saying is, do you come back a second time?

[00:23:45] Speaker 03:
Oh, yes.

[00:23:45] Speaker 03:
Oh, certainly.

[00:23:46] Speaker 04:
Does the VA allow that evidence?

[00:23:50] Speaker 04:
I'm sorry?

[00:23:50] Speaker 04:
Does the VA allow that evidence and consider it?

[00:23:53] Speaker 04:
Oh, yes.

[00:23:54] Speaker 03:
Yes.

[00:23:55] Speaker 03:
But I would direct the court's attention to the blue brief at page 12, where we cite the first secca decision from the Veterans Court in which the Veterans Court determined that the board may not reject a claim without producing evidence as distinguished from mere conjecture that the appellant can perform work sufficient to produce income other than marginal.

[00:24:23] Speaker 03:
As a consequence,

[00:24:25] Speaker 03:
what we end up with here is an expert, a VA examiner, who offers an opinion that the veteran is capable.

[00:24:34] Speaker 03:
That simply, in the guise of a medical opinion, is conjecture.

[00:24:40] Speaker 03:
There is nothing in this record, there was nothing in the VA examination that provided a factual basis for that conclusion.

[00:24:49] Speaker 03:
Now, both

[00:24:51] Speaker 03:
of you judges have given hypotheticals as to what an examiner might inquire, but those inquiries were not made in this case.

[00:24:59] Speaker 03:
They are not part of the record.

[00:25:01] Speaker 03:
And then the government's reference to the fact that he worked previously for 20 or 30 years with the steel industry is simply not relevant.

[00:25:11] Speaker 03:
His ability to work previously has nothing to do with this evaluation.

[00:25:16] Speaker 03:
It is the evaluation going forward.

[00:25:20] Speaker 03:
The VA says that they would disagree that psychiatrists are capable of making this decision.

[00:25:27] Speaker 03:
VA is instructing their psychiatrist not to make this determination.

[00:25:34] Speaker 03:
They are instructing this psychiatrist to do what this court said in GEEB, and that is to examine the symptoms.

[00:25:42] Speaker 03:
tell the VA raters what the limitations are that are observable or projectable from the veteran's psychiatric point of view based upon the severity, frequency, and duration of their symptoms.

[00:25:59] Speaker 03:
I have nothing.

[00:26:00] Speaker 03:
I'm sorry.

[00:26:01] Speaker 03:
Oh, I thought you had a question.

[00:26:03] Speaker 03:
Close up.

[00:26:04] Speaker 01:
Thank you.

[00:26:04] Speaker 01:
We thank both sides in the case.