## Facts

- Several veterans with disability-benefits appeals in the VA’s “legacy” system alleged systemic delay after filing Substantive Appeals.
- After a Substantive Appeal, VA performed a pre-certification review, then certified the appeal and transferred the appellate record to the Board of Veterans’ Appeals.
- VA’s reported averages in 2017 were about 773 days from Substantive Appeal to certification and another 321 days from certification to record transfer.
- Petitioners alleged that many claimants, including themselves, waited more than three years for these largely administrative steps, delaying Board review.
- In 2017, petitioners sought an extraordinary writ of mandamus compelling VA to expedite certification and transfer and sought class certification for similarly situated veterans.
- The Secretary opposed parts of the requested relief but conceded numerosity, typicality, and adequacy of representation for class treatment.

## Issues

1. Whether the court should certify a class challenging VA’s systemic delays in certifying and transferring legacy appeals to the Board, and how the class should be defined.
2. Whether multi-year delays in certification and transfer constituted “unreasonable delay” warranting mandamus.
3. Whether mandamus was appropriate given the asserted deprivation of timely Board review and asserted due process concerns, and the absence of adequate alternative remedies.

## Decision

- The court granted class certification but modified the proposed class definition.
- The court granted extraordinary relief in the nature of mandamus, finding VA’s systemic delays in certification and transfer unreasonable.
- The court declined to adopt the petitioners’ proposed across-the-board 60-day deadline but ordered systemic, class-wide remedial measures.
- The court imposed specified processing requirements and monitoring/reporting obligations intended to reduce the backlog and prevent recurrence of unreasonable delay.

## Legal Principles

- Mandamus may issue where an agency has a clear duty to act, the petitioner lacks adequate alternative means to obtain relief, and the delay is so egregious as to warrant extraordinary intervention.
- Systemic, multi-year delay in performing largely ministerial steps that gate access to appellate review can be “unreasonable” and subject to judicial correction.
- The court may employ aggregate procedures, including class certification, in aid of its jurisdiction and may tailor class-wide remedies to address a common, systemic practice.
- Administrative backlogs and resource constraints do not, by themselves, justify allowing appeals to remain stalled for years at a non-merits, administrative stage.

## Conclusion

The Veterans Court certified a class of similarly situated claimants and issued a class-wide writ of mandamus requiring VA to implement time-bound and monitored measures to address unreasonable, systemic delays in certifying and transferring legacy appeals to the Board, ensuring access to timely Board review.


Godsey v. Wilkie, 31 Vet. App. 207 (2019)