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hi everyone and welcome to the veterans legal Lowdown I'm Amy Odom I'm an attorney with cck
and today I'm breaking down a recent decision from the federal circuit the background of this
case score versus McDonough is that an Air Force veteran Victor score was seeking to file a class
action in the veterans court to seek relief for himself and other veterans who like him
have been involved in the nuclear accident in palomoris Spain after many many years of
litigation ultimately the federal circuit court of appeals which is the Superior Court to the U.S
court of appeals for veterans claims determined that um veterans who are seeking review of a
final board decision like Mr score was cannot see class action review to include other veterans who
have not also received a final decision from the board of veterans appeals so what it essentially
means is that after the decision the panel decision in school 4 you can only get a class
of veterans together for purposes of an appeal to the veterans court if the other members of
the class that the other veterans also have final board decisions that are still within the 120-day
period to appeal to the veterans court so this is a very very very strictly narrowed the kinds
of cases where veterans can seek class action review of a board decision at the veterans court
Mr score after receiving the panel decision filed a motion for or a petition for the panel
to reconsider its decision or for a re-hearing before an on-bond panel of the court and what
on Bank means is is before all of the judges in the court the panel was just three judges who
made this decision and now Mr score was asking either for those three judges to reconsider its
decision or for all nine judges to take a look at it and make a decision unfortunately both
requests were denied but not without a descent from five of the judges sitting on the federal
circuit and the dissent was very strong and has a lot of very interesting tidbits for example the
judges the five dissenting judges agreed that this panel decision really strictly narrowed the types
of cases where veterans can seek class action relief and that this was really a bad thing in
a system like the VA claims adjudication system that is riddled with backlogs and errors and
the five judges agreed that a panel decision or a presidential decision from the veterans
court on a single Veteran's decision is not a good substitute for class actions so this is a
really interesting case something to keep an eye on because five of the federal circuit get judges
dissented this could be the next case that we may see at the United States Supreme Court usually
when you see a split in an unbank panel like this it's a good indication that it's a very
um difficult question that needs an answer from the Supreme Court the other interesting thing
about this decision is that as it points out other courts other federal courts do have class action
Authority and why is it that the veterans court is singled out for not having this Authority so
um keep an eye on this case uh I suspect that a petition for uh certiori will be filed at the
the Supreme Court and then the question will be whether the Supreme Court will accept it
how could this decision impact veterans today not by much because the law as we know it from
the panel decision is that you can only have a class action in a case involving direct review
of a board's decision if you have veterans who are members of the class who also have final
board decisions that are appealable since that is the state of the law uh this denial of the
rehearing on bong didn't change much also it doesn't change that the availability of class
action relief in a case where you're seeking a writ of mandamus as opposed to review of an
actual board decision is not narrowed by this case those rules those are two separate kinds of cases
one is about trying to force VA to do something when you don't have a board decision yet and and
um one's about trying Force Base age to do something when you do have a board decision
this case does not affect the rules that govern cases when you don't have a board decision like
I said keep an eye out on the next steps and what happens at the U.S Supreme Court
we will of course provide updates as a situation progresses so stay tuned and thanks for watching
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