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Subcommittee hears competing plans to let courts, VA aggregate appeals and speed veterans' decisions
Summary
Lawmakers, legal experts and VA officials debated bills to expand aggregation, codify limited remand authority and otherwise change how veterans' appeals are litigated and decided, with supporters saying aggregation can deliver faster, consistent outcomes and VA and the court flagging drafting and authority concerns.
The House Veterans' Affairs subcommittee heard testimony on legislation designed to speed Department of Veterans Affairs appeals by allowing aggregation of similar appeals and clarifying the limited-remand power used by the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims.
Supporters said the bills would reduce years-long waits and produce more consistent decisions; witnesses warned that statutory language must be crafted carefully to avoid unintended limits on judicial flexibility.
Proponents argued aggregation — consolidating many claims that raise the same legal question into a single proceeding — can deliver faster, more uniform outcomes than deciding identical questions hundreds of times. Professor Michael Wishnie of Yale Law School told the committee that aggregation has "promised to help ameliorate VA delays to some significant extent, enabling veterans in a single…
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