73 Am. U. L. Rev. 1091 (2024).

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Abstract

In 2022 to 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (“Federal Circuit”) continued its conversation with the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims (“Veterans Court”), Department of Veterans Affairs (“VA”), and veterans to help sculpt the jurisprudence coming from the youngest of the federal courts, the Veterans Court. The Federal Circuit’s jurisprudence addressed ten main legal issues: class actions, petitions for writ of mandamus under the All Writs Act, defining standards of proof with the term “results from,” the benefit of the doubt doctrine post-Lynch, education benefits, less than honorable discharges, the rating schedule, implicit denials, equitable tolling and estoppel, and prejudicial error post-Tadlock.

* Professor Duterte is an Assistant Professor of Law and the Director of the Veterans Legal Clinic at University of Illinois Chicago School of Law in Chicago, Illinois. She thanks Contessa Gibson-Williams for her help in preparing and editing this piece.

** Professor McClean is an Associate Professor of Law and the Director of the Bob Parsons Veterans Advocacy Clinic at the University of Baltimore School of Law. He is grateful for the assistance of his amazing research assistant, Kaitlyn Lyons, and for the insights on class actions provided by Professor Adam Zimmerman. Special thanks to his family for their support, and to Breqlyne Johnson and the American University Law Review staff for highlighting the important work of the Federal Circuit.

*** Professor Simcox is a Professor of Law and the Director of the Veterans Law Institute and Veterans Advocacy Clinic at Stetson University College of Law in Gulfport, Florida. She thanks her husband, Mark Matthews, and her colleague, Morgan MacIsaac-Bykowski, for being generous sounding boards; Karen and Ken Simcox; Ken Carpenter; Judge Michael Allen; U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims Clerk Tiffany Wagner and her staff, in particular Mike Burnat; and the members of American University Law Review.