In 1975, Douglas Prestidge was ordered to help defend a radar installation in Vietnam. When enemy forces attacked, he was shot in the shoulder — and kept fighting. Moments later, an explosion hit his position. By the time the smoke cleared, he was one of only two survivors at the site. Rather than wait for evacuation, he went back to work: replacing damaged electronics cards and recalibrating the radar so the installation could function again.
Five decades later, the injuries from that day and the rest of his service have left him needing a neck brace, ankle braces, a right shoulder sling, and a left knee brace just to get through daily life. VA's clothing allowance program exists for exactly this situation — it compensates veterans whose prosthetic and orthopedic devices wear out their clothing faster than normal. In January 2020, the Veterans Health Administration agreed Mr. Prestidge qualified for six separate allowances. Then it paid him for only four, telling him that four is simply the maximum allowed "per beneficiary," no matter how many devices he needs.
We didn't think that was right, and neither does VA's own regulatory history. The rule VA points to, 38 C.F.R. § 3.810, was amended in 2011 specifically to make clear that a qualifying appliance earns its own allowance — the regulation was never written to cap the total at four. When we raised that argument to the Board of Veterans' Appeals, along with two other errors — the Board's own decision made contradictory statements about what evidence it had considered, and, as VA's own attorneys have now admitted in this appeal, part of the Board's reasoning was copied from a different veteran's case entirely — the Board denied the claim for his left knee brace anyway, without ever grappling with the argument.
We appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims. Briefing is now complete: our opening brief, VA's response, and our reply are all on file, and we're waiting on the Court's decision. At stake for Mr. Prestidge is $1,432 for a single year — a modest amount, but the principle matters far beyond one veteran's clothing allowance. If VA can impose a numerical ceiling that appears nowhere in the regulation it cites, and defend a Board decision partly written for someone else's case, every veteran relying on multiple orthopedic devices is at risk of being shortchanged the same way.
We'll share the Court's decision here once it comes down. In the meantime, if you're a veteran who's been told you've hit some unwritten "maximum" on a VA benefit you've otherwise qualified for, that denial may be worth a second look.
