Veterans Need Better Benefits Appeals Process, Professor Michael Wishnie Tells Lawmakers

William O. Douglas Clinical Professor of Law Michael J. Wishnie ’93 urged lawmakers in Washington this week to support legislation that would codify and expand authority to aggregate claims to streamline the appeals process for veterans benefits. 

Wishnie was invited by Republican members of a House subcommittee and testified Tuesday in favor of the Veterans Appeals Efficiency Act of 2025.

The legislation would give the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims and the Board of Veterans’ Appeals additional authority to aggregate claims, as civilians are able to do in judicial review of other government decisions and before other federal agencies. Treating like claims of veterans the same can help address a backlog of appeals for VA disability compensation, according to Wishnie. The VA provides a monthly payment to veterans who were sick or injured while serving in the military.

Watch the testimony

The Veterans Legal Services Clinic, which Wishnie directs, helped draft and has advocated for the legislation for the past year and half. The clinic has been working on the issue on behalf of a client, the National Veterans Legal Services Program.

The frustrations of veterans with the Board of Veterans Appeals are well known. Legislators speaking at the hearing cited a backlog of some 200,000 cases, adding that the board can address just 120,000 appeals a year. Veterans face long wait times, during which they face financial hardships or worse, supporters of the bill said. Many veterans wait months or even years. According to Wishnie, veterans can now expect to wait nearly four years for the board to decide their appeals. Many veterans die before their appeals are decided, speakers stressed. Simply adding more staff to the appeals board is not enough to make the process faster, supporters said, explaining that new tools are needed.

“The Veterans Appeals Efficiency Act wisely does not attempt a wholesale revision of the disability compensation system, but it does make important, common-sense changes that are likely to materially assist veterans and relieve the burdens and frustrations of the notorious ‘hamster wheel’ of recycled claims and delayed relief,” Wishnie told the Disability Assistance and Memorial Affairs Subcommittee of the House Veterans Affairs Committee.

His statement echoed remarks by Rep. Mike Bost (R-IL), chair of the Veterans Affairs Committee, who emphasized at the hearing that aggregation was a “tried and true” tool available to civilians and the same mechanisms should also be available to veterans. 

The Board of Veterans Appeals, part of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, is the first step for veterans who wish to appeal an agency decision about their eligibility for disability pay. If a veteran does not get a favorable outcome, they can bring their case to the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims, a federal court. The bill now being considered would expand the court’s jurisdiction, which supporters say would ease strain at the board. At the hearing, when questioned by Rep. Keith Self (R-TX), the Clerk of the Court agreed that the existing but limited authority of the court to aggregate some veterans claims had made the court’s adjudications more consistent and efficient.

Most significantly, the act would confer supplemental jurisdiction on the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims to certify classes that include veterans whose claims are still pending before the VA. 

Currently, veterans must be excluded as plaintiffs in an appeals class action if their appeals are still pending before the Board, the Federal Circuit ruled in 2022. That ruling, in Skaar v. McDonough, has thwarted attempts by groups of veterans to raise a common issue to bring to court, Wishnie told the subcommittee. The Veterans Legal Services Clinic is still involved in the ongoing case, which concerns U.S. Air Force personnel who cleaned up radioactive plutonium after a 1966 nuclear accident in Palomares, Spain.

The act would also allow the Board to aggregate veterans’ appeals that involve common questions of law or fact. The Board is an outlier among federal agencies for insisting that it cannot aggregate appeals on the same issue, Wishnie said. At least 70 other federal agencies hear class actions or have similar mechanisms to aggregate claims that offer a speedier process than hearing individual appeals, he said.

“There is no reason that veterans seeking judicial review of benefits decisions should be denied recourse to the same tools available to civilians challenging government decisions by other federal agencies,” Wishnie said.

The Veterans Appeals Efficiency Act has bipartisan support in both bodies of Congress. It was introduced in the House this year by Rep. Mike Bost (R-IL), chair of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, with co-sponsorship by Rep. Mark Takano (D-CA), ranking member on the committee. The bill was also introduced in the Senate by Sen. Richard Blumenthal ’73 (D-CT), ranking member of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, and Sen. Jim Banks (R-IN), a member of the committee. 

Typically, after a subcommittee reviews and holds hearings on a bill, the subcommittee may propose amendments to the bill before voting on whether to advance the bill to the full committee.