A lawsuit has been filed in Connecticut by Yale Law School Veterans Legal Services Clinic accusing the army of conducting biased reviews and discharging thousands of members without doing its due diligence with regard to checking into soldiers' mental health and the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).  The lawsuit specifically names Army Secretary Robert Speer as the defendant.  The two plaintiffs, Stephen Kennedy, 30, and Alicia Carson, 28, are Army veterans from Connecticut who had been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan.  

Image Courtesy of VaHealth.org

The "liberal consideration" concept was implemented after Yale Law School's Legal Services successfully sued the Army in 2014 on behalf of Vietnam veterans with PTSD. "That should have been the end of it, and here we are, three years later, asking them to actually do what they said they would do,  Yale law student Helen White said.  White is one of five law students representing Kennedy and Carson. "We think it’s really shameful that it’s taken not one, but two, class actions filed by vets with PTSD to get the military to do something about it." White claims the class action case filed on behalf of the two soldiers can extend to others and acts as an example of how far reaching the issue truly is.  "To prove to the Army that this is not a one-off, they are not one-off mistakes," she said. "We want to make sure that we’re bringing as many people in as we can."   

Sources:

Veterans with PTSD are suing the Army to have their discharges upgradedConnecticut Veterans Sue Army Over Less-Than-Honorable Discharges Due To PTSD