Landmark Ruling: Attorneys Can Now File Class Actions on Behalf of Vets

Welcome to ClassAction.org’s newest series, I Didn’t Know That Was a Thing, where we discuss newsworthy items that, as the title suggests, most may not have caught the first time around.

A landmark (and, surprisingly, somewhat under-the-radar) ruling was handed down at the tail end of April by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit that, for the first time in history, opened the door for attorneys to file class action lawsuits on behalf of veterans.

The 3-0 ruling out of Washington D.C., detailed by writer Robert Storace in a post on the Connecticut Law Tribune’s (CLT) website, marks a breakthrough in an area that, frankly, goes underreported by most of legal news industry.

“For a long time, veterans were the only group of people not allowed to bring class action suits because their claims were funneled, by law, through the CAVC [U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims],” Yale Law School Veterans Legal Services Clinic worker Mario Gazzola, who worked on the case with a team of Yale professors, students and lawyers, said. “Attorneys can now file class actions on behalf of veterans because of what this court did. This allows groups action in seeking group justice. The ruling has definitely opened up a lot of avenues for vets to get redress for legal issues.”

The case—Monk v. Secretary of Veterans Affairs—revolved around 68-year-old Marine Corps Vietnam veteran Conley Monk Jr., who, in 2015, brought a 20-page lawsuit on behalf of thousands of similarly situated veterans in an attempt to require the Department of Veterans Affairs to make a decision on “initial disability compensation appeals” pending for longer than one year in cases involving veterans facing “medical or financial hardships.” The court denied Monk’s request, CLT wrote, declaring it had no authority to hear class action cases.

April 28’s ruling changed all that, with the federal circuit appeals court stating:

“We hold that the Veterans Court has the authority to certify a class for a class action and to maintain similar aggregate resolution procedures. We reverse the judgment of the Veterans Court and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. We see no reason why the Veterans Court cannot use class actions to promote efficiency, consistency, and fairness in its decisions.”

Gazzola noted this issue has gotten bigger than just one veteran’s denial of benefits appeal, and marks a major victory for veterans, of which the CTL says there are more than 427,000 facing an average delay of three years while appealing denials of benefits.

Read Robert Storace’s entire write-up of the U.S. Court of Appeals’ ruling over at CTLawTribune.com.