90,000 Veterans Could Get VA Disability Appeals Reopened After Decades

A settlement could force the VA to reopen more than 90,000 wrongly closed disability appeals, with back pay reaching back to 1990.

Marvin Mathewson did his part. The Army veteran filed a claim for special monthly compensation, the benefit for veterans who need help with the basics of daily living. The VA denied it. In December 2017, he filed his Substantive Appeal on time, the document that sends a case up to the Board of Veterans' Appeals. Then the VA's computer closed his appeal. Not one letter, not even a call. Nothing. Mathewson died three years later, still waiting on a decision that was never coming. His widow, Mary, stepped into his appeal and kept waiting in his place. He was not an outlier, but that is the whole point.

More than 90,000 veterans and surviving family members are now covered by a proposed class action settlement in Freund v. Collins, a lawsuit forcing the Department of Veterans Affairs to go back through decades of disability appeals, its own tracking system shut down in error, often without the veteran ever knowing. A federal court will decide whether to make the deal final at a fairness hearing on Aug. 13. If approved, appeals that vanished as far back as 1990 will be reactivated, and claims that win could pay compensation all the way back to the original filing date.

More at the link.

https://www.military.com/90000-veterans-could-get-va-disability-appeals-reopened-after-decades?lid=1y0n23fhbgr2&utm_source=MLT-nl_army_vi_2026-07-14&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=MLT-202607142033&user=am5tZ2FnZUBjb21jYXN0Lm5ldDptbHQ&utm_source=MLT-nl_army_vi_2026-07-14&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=MLT-202607142033&user=am5tZ2FnZUBjb21jYXN0Lm5ldDptbHQ