Comment by David R. DiMatteo
Each year, the U.S government pays more than twenty-two billion dollars in disability benefit awards to veterans injured while serving in the armed forces. These benefits are determined through an administrative proceeding conducted by the Veteran's Administration. In 1985, The Supreme Court decided Walters v. National Ass'n of Radiation Survivors, upholding the constitutionality of statutory restrictions on attorney's fees in veterans' benefit cases. The Court concluded that due process does not require that veterans be able to hire attorneys to represent them in administrative hearings before the VA. Since that decision, Congress has passed the Veterans Judicial Review Act which created a court of appeals for veterans' benefit claims (CVA) and prohibited veterans from providing any compensation to an attorney prior to the appeal before the CVA. This Comment revisits the procedural due process argument the Court used to decide Walters in light of the new provisions of the Veteran Judicial Review Act. It concludes that given the new law, the subjective nature of past due process jurisprudence, the presence of increasingly complex types of injuries that lead to veteran disability, and the likely change in Court membership, veterans seeking to hire attorneys will have an opportunity to present compelling new arguments to the Court in favor of allowing veterans to hire attorneys to represent them in benefits proceedings.
About the Author
David R. DiMatteo.
Citation
80 Tul. L. Rev. 975 (2006)