A job is a protected work environment for TDIU (Total Disability based on Individual Unemployability) when it is a lower-income position that, because of your service-connected disabilities, is shielded in some respect from competition in the employment market. The Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims set that definition in LaBruzza v. McDonough, 37 Vet.App. 111 (2024). An ordinary workplace accommodation does not make a job protected on its own, and there is no fixed income cutoff.
Protected work matters when you earn more than the Census poverty threshold for one person. 38 C.F.R. 4.16(a) lets VA still treat that work as marginal employment "on a facts found basis," meaning from the facts of the job rather than from income alone, and it names a family business and a sheltered workshop as examples. The broader rating and employment rules are in the TDIU eligibility guide.
What LaBruzza decided
The regulation never defined "employment in a protected environment." In Cantrell v. Shulkin, 28 Vet.App. 382 (2017), the court found the phrase ambiguous and sent the question back for VA to define. As the LaBruzza opinion recounts, VA issued no definition to its adjudicators in the years that followed.
In LaBruzza, a three-judge panel decided two consolidated appeals (Nos. 21-4467 and 20-8562) on January 24, 2024. The court held:
- The phrase is not ambiguous. It means a lower-income position shielded "in some respect" from competition because of service-connected disability. The job does not have to be completely separated from the job market.
- Income matters. Protected work must be relatively low paying, and how far earned income exceeds the poverty threshold is a key consideration, but the court set no bright-line figure.
- The employer's charitable motive is not required, though VA may consider it.
- An accommodation required by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is generally not, by itself, evidence of protected work, because the ADA is part of the competitive job market. Accommodations beyond what the ADA requires make protected work more likely to be shown; needing no accommodation at all makes it less likely.
- None of these points decides a case alone. The Board of Veterans' Appeals may weigh any fact that shows whether a particular job was shielded, and TDIU still depends on whether service-connected disabilities prevent the mental and physical acts of substantially gainful work.
The court did not grant TDIU to either veteran. It set aside both Board denials and remanded them (sent them back) for the Board to apply the definition and make the missing findings. It did agree that Mr. LaBruzza's 2017 earnings of $198,147 were categorically too high for that year to count as protected.
Two footnotes are practical. Footnote 7 lists yardsticks VA could use to judge whether income is "lower": VA's maximum annual pension rate (38 U.S.C. 1521), the income limits for VA health care (38 U.S.C. 1722) and other income-based benefit guidelines. These are examples, not a cutoff. Footnote 8 says it may be relevant whether a veteran was held to different performance standards than other employees, or kept a job despite below-standard evaluations.
VA's claims manual now uses the same definition and cites 37 Vet.App. 111. M21-1, Part VIII, Subpart iv, Chapter 3, Section A gives two examples that may point to protected work: a veteran held to different performance standards who keeps the job despite below-standard evaluations, and a veteran in a friend's business who can take breaks or time off when service-connected disabilities flare up. The manual also says VA considers protected work only when income exceeds the poverty threshold.
Ask what protection changed the job
Describe the regular demands of the position and what actually happened when you could not meet them. Did someone else take over essential duties? Were deadlines, attendance or productivity standards different from those for comparable workers? Was the position kept despite performance or absences that would usually end a competitive job? Who made those arrangements, when, and why?
| Fact to establish | Possible firsthand source | Question that keeps it accurate |
|---|---|---|
| Actual pay by year | W-2, pay stub, tax record | Is it a lower-income position in context, and what was earned in each year that matters? |
| Normal job demands | Job description, schedules, production or service expectations | What did the role require before and after a change? |
| Duties removed or covered | Emails, assignment history, a coworker's or supervisor's account | Was the change because of a service-connected limitation, or for another business reason? |
| Absences, breaks, hours | Time records, leave logs, calendar | Were the arrangements unusual in this job, not just available to every worker? |
| Performance standards | Evaluations, written warnings, a supervisor's account | Were you held to a different standard, or kept despite below-standard reviews? |
| Reason the job continued | The employer's specific account, contract, family-business records | How, if at all, was the position shielded from competition? |
| Medical functional effects | Treatment or examination records | Do they address the specific tasks, without asking a clinician to certify employer policies? |
Ask for facts rather than asking an employer to declare the job "protected." The employer can describe its policies, exceptions, performance expectations and support. You can describe your experience. Neither witness should be scripted to say what they did not observe.
Fictional example: Sam's family-owned warehouse kept paying him for a reduced role after his documented service-connected limitations stopped him from regular lifting. Other workers did the loading, and his hours and earnings dropped. That is a set of facts to document, not proof of eligibility. A separate fictional worker who uses an ergonomic chair at ordinary hours and pay presents a different record; the chair alone neither proves nor rules out protected work.
A Board denial that did not show protected work
In Board decision A25092030 (October 23, 2025), a veteran with a 90 percent combined rating described a cleaning job he could hold only because it involved little contact with others and was, in his words, "a no brain job." He had asked his employer for accommodations and received no answer. Applying LaBruzza, the Board found that did not show a lower-income position shielded from competition, and it noted that the record lacked his income, hours and how long the job lasted. It denied TDIU. The missing pieces were the ones in the table above: what the employer did differently and what the job paid.
Statements from coworkers and supervisors are how many of those facts reach the record. Across all conditions in Claim Raven's analysis of 2024 to 2025 Board decisions, condition records where the Board quoted lay evidence were favorable 41.5% of the time, compared with 22.0% where it did not (Claim Raven's Board statistics). TDIU records alone are too few to split this way, and Board appeals are already-disputed claims, so the figure describes a pattern, not your odds or proof that a statement causes a grant.
Keep the income analysis connected but distinct
Protected work still has to be lower income, so put each year's earned income beside the facts about shielding. The year-by-year income worksheet and Census threshold table covers that comparison. Do not call a well-paid job protected because the employer is understanding.
To put your own experience of the job into words, Claim Raven's free Personal Statement Builder works without an account. It drafts your statement, not an employer certification or a legal finding. Claim Raven sells other claim tools and has a commercial interest in this topic.
An accredited representative can help apply LaBruzza to a contested record. Keep ordinary pay and duty records, including unfavorable ones. The goal is to make the nature of the job clear, not to rename a normal accommodation.
Sources and scope
Checked September 23, 2026: the LaBruzza v. McDonough opinion (including its account of Cantrell and footnotes 7 and 8), 38 C.F.R. 4.16(a), the protected-environment text in M21-1, Part VIII, Subpart iv, Chapter 3, Section A (topic dated November 25, 2024), Board decision A25092030 and Claim Raven's Board statistics. Sam and the second worker are fictional.
TDIU and Self-Employment: Records That Show Your Actual Work
How to Qualify for TDIU: Ratings, Work History, and Evidence
VA Form 21-8940 Example: A Filled-In Work History and Checklist