Federal prosecutors are appealing a federal judge's decision to award $3.7 million to an Iraq War veteran from Carbondale who sued the Department of Veterans Affairs over poor treatment of his war-induced post-traumatic stress disorder.
Attorneys for Stanley Laskowski III, 35, will now argue the case a second time before the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals after convincing Senior U.S. District Judge James M. Munley the VA prescribed Mr. Laskowski the wrong medications and should not have treated him over the telephone.
Judge Munley granted the award in favor of Mr. Laskowski, a decorated Marine sergeant and veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom, after a bench trial in September.
The government's notice of appeal, submitted by U.S. Attorney Peter J. Smith and Assistant U.S. Attorney G. Michael Thiel, was filed Friday.
The notice does not state the basis for the appeal but merely serves to inform the district court in Scranton, where the case was prosecuted by Mr. Thiel, that the government intends to challenge the judge's decision before the Philadelphia-based appellate court.
Efforts to reach a spokeswoman for Mr. Smith on Friday were unsuccessful.
Mr. Laskowski was honorably discharged in February 2007.
His attorneys - Daniel Brier, Patrick Casey and John Dempsey of Scranton - filed a federal lawsuit against the VA in 2010.
The suit claimed clinicians at the VA Medical Center in Plains Twp. did not adequately treat Mr. Laskowski's PTSD and did not immediately offer him the best therapeutic methods to alleviate his declining condition.
When Judge Munley issued his 69-page ruling in January, Mr. Laskowski had waited just two months shy of three years for a resolution in his case.
The judge agreed with the plaintiff's contention that VA clinicians should never have decided to change or alter Mr. Laskowski's PTSD medications based on conversations with him over the telephone.
At the trial, he testified about the violence he experienced during the war, and how the traumas and darkness of his time in Iraq permeated his mind, contributing to a downward psychological spiral over time.
Judge Munley, however, cautioned that his decision should not be construed as an indictment of the VA.
"Our decision should not be interpreted as a sweeping criticism of the care that the (VA) provides to the nation's veterans," the judge wrote.
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