The suit claims that many disabled combat veterans are in dire need of counseling and other services they are not currently receiving from the U.S. government. Erspamer [the plaintiff's counsel] estimates that 120 veterans who served in Iraq or Afghanistan commit suicide each week. The veterans' groups are not seeking monetary damages but want reform of a health care system in which they allege a huge backlog of cases prevents veterans from receiving timely care.

A majority of the VA's counselors, doctors, social workers and psychologists "don't have the tools and the information that they need to intervene effectively with suicidal vets," said Maris, a former president of the American Association of Suicidology who has been a consultant to the Army on suicide prevention.

He was particularly critical of the VA's top health care administrator, William Feeley, who said in a pretrial deposition April 9 that the agency has no systematic national plan for suicide prevention. Feeley also said he was unaware of any methods of tracking veterans at risk of suicide and that suicide rates "are not a metric we are measuring."