The Court reviewed a Board denial of a total disability rating based on individual unemployability (TDIU) for a veteran with an 80% combined service-connected rating, who also had significant non-service-connected problems including diabetes and virtual blindness. The Court explained that age and non-service-connected disabilities may not be considered in the TDIU analysis, and that the Board must determine whether service-connected disabilities alone create circumstances that take the veteran outside the norm for veterans with the same combined rating.

Applying that standard, the Court affirmed the Board. It emphasized that a high disability rating already recognizes difficulty obtaining and keeping employment, and that the dispositive question is whether the veteran can perform the physical and mental acts required by employment, not whether he can find a job. Because the record did not show unusual or exceptional circumstances caused by service-connected disabilities alone, the denial of TDIU was upheld.

For TDIU, the decisive issue is whether service-connected disabilities alone prevent the veteran from performing the physical and mental acts required for employment; unemployment or job-search difficulty by itself does not establish unemployability.

Van Hoose is frequently cited to resist arguments that long-term unemployment alone proves TDIU. The case directs adjudicators to focus on functional work capacity attributable to service-connected disability, excluding age and non-service-connected conditions.

This decision supplies a foundational definition of unemployability in VA law and remains useful when the record shows unemployment but not a clear service-connected functional bar to work. It helps frame advocacy around occupational limitations, not mere labor-market status.

Treating unemployment itself as proof of unemployability without analyzing whether service-connected disabilities actually prevent the acts required by employment.

A veteran with a high combined rating has not worked for years and argues TDIU based on inability to find employers willing to hire him. Under Van Hoose, the claim turns instead on whether service-connected limitations prevent the veteran from doing the physical and mental tasks of substantially gainful work.

Use this case to emphasize the need for vocational and functional evidence tied to service-connected impairments. It is especially helpful in defending or challenging TDIU decisions where the record focuses on unemployment history rather than occupational capacity.

Hersey v. Derwinski, Gilbert v. Derwinski