Thousands of veterans’ disability claims erroneously denied on appeal will get another look

By Linda F. Hersey. Read it in Stars and Stripes.

A class action lawsuit involving tens of thousands of veterans whose disability appeals were erroneously closed by the Department of Veterans Affairs will be heard in federal court this summer to determine whether a proposed settlement agreement is fair and reasonable.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims, in Washington, D.C., is scheduled to review the proposed settlement on Aug. 13, with the agreement representing veterans and their survivors whose claims were closed by the VA between Dec. 12, 1990, and Feb. 6, 2025, according to court documents.

Army veteran J. Roni Freund and Mary S. Mathewson, the surviving spouse of Army veteran Marvin Mathewson, jointly filed the lawsuit in 2021 after their appeals for disability benefits were deactivated due to a malfunction in the Veterans Appeals Control and Locator System.

The court certified the case in March as a class action representing more than 90,000 veterans and their families who were similarly affected.

Impacted veterans and their survivors never received a final decision from the Board of Veterans’ Appeals or were never told their appeal had been closed, according to court documents.

The computer system mistakenly determined that veterans missed a deadline to file their paperwork, said Jim Fausone, managing partner of Legal Help for Veterans, which represents veterans in complex benefits cases.

Tens of thousands of claims were prematurely closed as a result, he said.

“Veterans lost access to their VA appeals not because they missed a deadline — but because of VA administrative and computer errors,” Fausone said.

Known as VACOLS, the computer system tracked, managed and monitored veteran appeals for disability compensation and other benefits.

According to the legal firm Hill and Pontoon, which helps veterans with their VA claims, VACOLS sometimes marked claims as inactive or dormant, even when veterans had properly filed appeals.

The Freund v. Collins case is centered on an administrative error where the VA’s electronic tracking system improperly closed thousands of veterans’ disability appeals for decades, Fausone said.

Many claims were closed because VA processors failed to scan or upload documents in time, entered incorrect dates of receipt, or misidentified documents, Fausone said.

“To the system, it looked like nothing was filed. To the veteran, it was silence,” Fausone said. VACOLS would automatically close the appeal during a monthly sweep.

Under the proposed classwide settlement, the VA agreed to manually audit nearly 28,000 wrongly closed appeal files and notify more than 64,000 additional veterans, according to court documents.

The agency also committed to reactivate any valid legacy appeals that were improperly shut down due to computer errors, according to court documents.

The parties’ proposed settlement was filed with the court on Dec. 16, 2025.

Old claims that are determined to be legitimate will be processed as if they were never closed, Fausone said.

Claims approved by the VA may be awarded compensation back to the original date that the claim was filed, even if it was decades years ago, Fausone said.

The VA published a notice in April for impacted veterans and their families and is sending out other communications. “If you get a notice, do not ignore it — even if your appeal is very old. These notices may be the only signal a veteran ever receives that their appeal was wrongly closed,” Fausone said.

“We encourage veterans and their families to talk to their advocates, attorneys, or veteran service officers,” he said. The fairness hearing in August is to officially approve the settlement and make it legally binding. Old disability claims that the VA advances to review will need to contain new medical information and an updated disability rating, Fausone said.

Surviving dependents can keep claims active for veterans who have died, Fausone said. “The Freund class action lawsuit is about correcting past administrative failures, not creating new benefits,” Fausone said.