Thousands of veterans in eastern North Carolina and nationwide who had their disability appeals abruptly closed due to government computer errors may finally see their cases reopened. A preliminary settlement in the class-action lawsuit Freund v. Collins has cleared the way for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to audit and potentially restore benefits for a massive group of former service members.
Senior Disability Attorney Claire Hillan Sosa with Deuterman Law Group said the lawsuit, which achieved class-action status earlier this year, centers on a glitch in the VA’s legacy tracking system, Veterans Appeals Control and Locator System, or VACOLS. “So, for those 28,000 veterans or appellants, VA, under the settlement agreement, has to one by one audit their cases and send them a letter saying, ‘Hey, you're a part of this group. We're going to audit your case.’ And then individually examine their cases to see if their appeals were in fact closed improperly,” she explained.
The glitch may have also impacted 64,000 additional veterans who, while not part of the primary class receiving automatic reactivation, are being notified by the VA of their right to request a review of their cases. And Hillan Sosa said there are even more vets who will have to take matters into their own hands if they believe an appeal was wrongly denied. “There's going to be an additional group of veterans who won't receive any notice letters under this settlement agreement who also may be members of the class because they used yet another form that VA's automated identification hasn't put them into one of these two groups,” she said, “And so those people will also have to proactively reach out to VA and ask them to audit their cases.”
The system improperly flagged thousands of "legacy" appeals as missing a crucial deadline—the filing of a Substantive Appeal—despite many veterans having filed on time. As a result, these cases were closed prematurely, often without the veteran’s knowledge, cutting off their path to disability compensation.
The scope of the settlement is vast. Hillan Sosa said it covers veterans whose appeals were wrongly shuttered between December 12, 1990, and February 6, 2025. “Tens of thousands of veterans who are getting letters from VA and may be able to reestablish appeals that were improperly closed going back to as early as 1990,” she said. “And if those appeals are successful, then their effective dates for their benefits will go back to 1990. So that's going to be a lot of back pay.”
For many, this represents decades of potential retroactive benefits that were effectively "lost" in a digital void.“ Hillan Sosa crunched the numbers and said, “Just 10% going back to 1990, that's $50,000 of back pay. So, if you increase that to, let's say they get a 50%, that's $300,000 of back pay. Let's say they are entitled to 100%. That's $1,081,000 of back pay at 100% rating going back to 1990. So, it could be a lot.”
Under the terms of the proposed agreement, the VA will conduct a massive audit of approximately 28,258 flagged cases, and those veterans do not need to file a new claim to be included in the initial audit. Cases found to have been closed in error will be reactivated, allowing the appeal process to resume as if it had never been interrupted. But Hillan Sosa said, “If a veteran believes that they may be a member of this class, and the questions they should ask themselves are, ‘Did I file an appeal to the Board of Veterans Appeals under the Legacy Appeals System, and it's not still pending, and I haven't received a decision?’ Then I might be a member of this class. And then they should reach out to VA, and they can do that with a phone call or submit a statement. Or if they don't get anywhere with that, or they're not sure how to do that, then reach out to an accredited VSO agent or attorney, or reach out directly to the class council at Carpenter Chartered as well. They're not restricted to going to Carpenter Chartered, but they are putting in place a whole apparatus to screen people.”
The U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims appointed John D. Niles, the managing shareholder at Carpenter Chartered, as the class counsel to handle this massive VA appeals error. Formal objections can be sent via email to freundobjection@carpenterchartered.com or their Topeka office, but time is running short – they’re due by May 15.
John D. Niles
Carpenter Chartered
P.O. Box 2099
Topeka, KS 66601
Attn: Freund Objection
Also include: Your full name and reference number “Freund, 21-4168.”
While the audit is set to begin shortly, the final court hearing to approve the settlement is not expected until later this year. Hillan Sosa said appellants should expect a long, arduous road ahead.
“We're all well aware of the backlog that VA already faces, and they've been doing a lot of work to try and reduce that backlog over the years,” she said, “This, you know, reestablishing tens of thousands of cases in the legacy system at the Board of Veterans Appeals is going to take a while. We're probably looking at years before this is all resolved.”
The VA has not publicly commented on the specifics of the settlement but has moved forward with the certification of the class following a by the Federal Circuit. For the department, the audit represents a significant administrative undertaking as it continues to transition away from legacy systems toward the modernized Appeals Modernization Act (AMA) framework.
For the veterans affected, the news offers a glimmer of hope that a decades-old "computer says no" error will finally be corrected.
