A panel of US judges has rejected an effort by the Trump administration to delay court rulings on claims by veterans who say they have been unfairly denied disability benefits and other compensation tied to their military service.
The 9-0 ruling, handed down on Wednesday by the court of appeals for veterans claims, was led by chief judge Michael Allen, a Trump appointee. The action is the latest example of the growing number of federal judges pushing back against Trump administration moves.
Wednesday’s decision came after secretary of veterans affairs, Doug Collins, asked the court to halt work on nearly all cases until the government shutdown concludes.
“Pausing VA’s deadlines in nearly every case before the court is a significant and extreme request, and the secretary has failed to demonstrate that such sweeping relief is appropriate,” the judges wrote.
Veterans groups, which have urged politicians to end the shutdown, said Collins was using the impasse as a pretext to deny veterans their day in court.
“Some of those veterans have already waited 10, 20 or even 50 years for VA, the law, and the science to allow them to file claims for toxic exposure such as Agent Orange and burn pits,” said Paul Sullivan, a Gulf war veteran and national vice-chair of the advocacy group Veterans for Common Sense. “If VA had prevailed, these veterans could have faced indefinite delays for their benefits and in some cases their care. Trump sought to make those veterans wait longer, and that’s unconscionable.”
The VA press secretary, Pete Kasperowicz, did not respond to inquiries by the Guardian’s deadline. In its petition, agency general counsel James Baehr acknowledged that “delaying these veterans’ cases is undesirable”, but said the lapse of federal funding could preclude the VA from “performing the official functions necessary to satisfy the court’s filing deadlines in most of the cases currently pending before the court”.
The court of appeals for veterans claims hears approximately 15,000 cases a year. In most cases, it either grants the veterans’ claim for compensation or sends the case back to VA claims adjudicators to resolve errors that could have led to a wrongful denial of benefits.
As of September 2024, the median time between a veteran filing an appeal to disposition of a case by the court was 222 days, or seven and a half months.
