WASHINGTON — The family of an Iraq war veteran filed suit yesterday accusing Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson of negligence in the suicide death of their son.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Springfield, Mass., says the VA is to blame for the death of 23-year-old Jeffrey Lucey, a Marine who killed himself in June 2004 after he allegedly was denied mental health care following a tour in Iraq.

The lawsuit seeking unspecified damages names Mr. Nicholson, who is leaving his job, and the American government as defendants.

The action comes just days after the group Veterans for Common Sense sued Mr. Nicholson and the VA on behalf of injured Iraq war veterans. That lawsuit accuses the agency of unlawfully denying the veterans disability pay and mental health treatment.

Lucey’s father, Kevin, says he and his wife hope their lawsuit will force the Bush administration to take swift action to fix the VA.

“They’ve got to look at the entire system of the VA,” Mr. Lucey said, who spoke from his home in Belchertown, Mass. “We’re hoping that it goes to trial and that people can truly see how dysfunctional the system is.”

According to the complaint, Lance Cpl. Jeffrey Lucey began to experience difficulties several months after returning from Iraq. He had nightmares, vomiting, and began drinking heavily. Depression set in.

He told his sister he had “a rope and tree picked out” behind the family home and needed to keep a flashlight by his bed to check for camel spiders he heard at night.

His parents took him to the Northampton VA Medical Center and he was involuntarily committed for help. He was released a few days later after VA personnel said they couldn’t make an assessment of his posttraumatic stress disorder until he was alcohol free, said the complaint.

A few days later, his family took Lucey back to the center, but the lawsuit says the staff turned him away. Kevin Lucey found his son dead, hanging from a beam in the cellar two weeks later.