hi everyone welcome to cck live under five i'm christian mccarnigan and today i'm going to be
explaining what the docket is at the united states court of appeals for veterans claims
so first let's just hit an overview of the cavc so cevc is just an acronym for the united states
court of appeals for veterans claims when you get a board decision and you disagree with it you
don't like what the board did you have the right to appeal to the united states court of appeals
for veterans claims or the cavc but you only have 120 days to do it so you need to make sure you get
that appeal filed within that 120 days so when you file an appeal of a board decision the veteran or
the claimant is essentially taking legal action against the secretary of the u.s department of
veterans affairs so once you file that appeal the case transfers to the cavc it's no longer under
the jurisdiction of the va the court is a federal court that was set up by congress to oversee um
the decisions of the secretary final decisions by the secretary and once you file that appeal
it becomes a federal case right you've heard the expression don't make a federal case out of it
well when you file an appeal to cavc you have so the cabc does three basic things it affirms the
board decision finds that the board didn't do anything wrong it reverses the board decision
um something that the board said was incorrect so they reverse that finding or they reverse
the denial of service connection doesn't happen very often but it can and most often it vacates
and remands the board's decision so it says board you did this this this wrong here you go take the
case back issue a new decision that's compliant with the law and doesn't make these same mistakes
so i said i was going to talk about the docket so here's what the docket is once you file an appeal
by submitting that notice of appeal within 120 days you get placed on the cavc's docket
so the docket is the court's record of what's going on in the case and also the schedule of
proceeding so it determines the order in which the appeals will be decided and it also determines
how the case is going to go so it's important to know though that your docket number is not your va
claims file number it's not the board's docket number either it's a separate docket number that's
assigned specifically to your court case so after the case is added to the docket the court issues a
notice of docketing to everyone involved in the case so if you're representing yourself to you
and to va if you have an advocate i practice that court so it would send it to me for my clients and
you can search for your docket number so uh you know if you're working
with an advocate they should tell you what your docket number is if you're uh you know
representing yourself you can go to the court's website and you can search for your docket number
to see what's going on in your case so uh i said this was going to be under five minutes i intend
to keep that problem keep that promise so for more information on the cavc and how to appeal
check out our blog and other youtube videos that we have and also be sure to require request a copy
of our downloadable ebook about the process and timelines at the cabc and thank you for joining us
you