Summary

After a decision has been drafted at the Board and the appellant believes the Board erred in its decision, the appellant has the option to appeal that decision with the United States Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims (CAVC). CAVC then reviews the Board's decision. CAVC's review is based on the record before the agency and arguments of the parties, which are presented in written brief. CAVC does not review new evidence. When CAVC sends its findings back, this is known as a remand.

Caseflow allows entry/creation of CAVC remands only for AMA appeals. Legacy (non-AMA) appeals can also be remanded from CAVC and are supported, but they are not entered through Caseflow's UI.

When an AMA CAVC remand is processed in Caseflow, a new appeal stream off of the original is created with the type Court Remand. This appeal shares the same docket number as the original appeal. A CavcTask is immediately created to handle all CAVC-related tasks that need to be completed before the case can be sent to distribution.

Typically for CAVC Remands (i.e., JMR and JMPR subtypes), the first task that the CAVC Litigation Support team is the SendCavcRemandProcessedLetterTask. Once this letter has been sent to the veteran, the CAVC lit support team can mark this task complete, which puts the case on hold for 90 days while waiting for a response by opening a CavcRemandProcessedLetterResponseWindowTask. Once the veteran responds with how to proceed with the case, the CAVC Litigation Support team can send the case to appropriate branches or teams, grant an extension request, or send the case directly to distribution.

For an MDR subtype (i.e., CAVC has not returned the mandate to the Board yet), before the SendCavcRemandProcessedLetterTask is created, an MdrTask is initially created to place it on hold for 90 days until to wait for CAVC's mandate. Once the mandate and judgement dates are set, then a SendCavcRemandProcessedLetterTask is created and can continue as described above.

For decisions of type Straight Reversal and Death Dismissal, if the mandate (i.e., judgement and mandate dates) is provided, then the resulting appeal is ready for distribution to a VLJ -- no CAVC-related tasks are created. Otherwise, the appeal is put on hold (for 90 days) until the mandate is received.

CAVC Cases are considered to be high priority in caseflow. These cases are marks with red lettering in users' queues and case details and are treated as high priority when distributing cases to judges.

Supported CAVC Decision Types

1. Remand - When a case is remanded by CAVC, it means the VA has made errors in its decision that require the case to be sent back to the Board and corrected. There are a few types of remands detailed in the next section.
2. Straight Reversal - When a case is remanded by CAVC due to CAVC's mandate to reverse the Board's decision on the appeal.
3. Death Dismissal - When a case is remanded by CAVC due to death of the Veteran.

Supported Remand Subtypes

1. JMR (Joint Motion for Remand) - All of the decisions on the original appeal are being remanded
2. JMPR (Joint Motion Partial Remand) - Some of the decisions on the original appeal are being remanded
3. MDR (Memorandum Decision on Remand) - The appeal is being remanded, but the Court has not returned the mandate to the Board yet.

Future Work

1. Supporting subsequent extension requests

Organization

CAVC work is completed by users belonging to the CavcLitigationSupport team. There are two types of users for this organization: admins & non-admins.

Currently the only difference between the two user user types is that admins have a team management page and the ability to bulk assign tasks. There is no difference when it comes to the ability to complete task actions.