‘Veterans court’ faces a backlog that continues to grow

In a cramped office building in Washington, sandwiched between a deli and a day care, a little-known appeals court for veterans is struggling to work its way through hundreds of backlogged cases.

The court, created two decades ago to weigh disability claims rejected by the Department of Veterans Affairs, is by many measures the nation’s busiest federal appellate court — and a symbol of the accumulating toll of prolonged war, both on soldiers and the bureaucracies created to serve them.

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The caseload at the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims has doubled in recent years, with the court deciding more than 600 cases per judge each year — far more than other federal appellate courts. Judges are working nights and weekends but say they still have difficulty keeping pace.

Veterans whose claims had already spent years in the VA system often wait several more years for the court to rule on whether they will receive disability payments and free health care. Some have abandoned their appeals. Others, including soldiers from as far back as World War II, have died before a decision was issued.

One veteran’s case lasted 14 years, seven at the appellate court, which considered three appeals in a repeating cycle lawyers dub “the hamster wheel.”

At least part of the blame, say advocates for the nation’s 23 million veterans, rests with the Obama administration, which has made veterans a priority yet has not submitted nominations to fill the court’s bench, where three of the nine seats are vacant.

“I’m hugely disappointed,’’ said Glenn R. Bergmann, president of the bar association that represents veterans before the court. He is one of a number of advocates who have written the White House about the problem, with no response. “It’s not like we’re trying to put someone on the Supreme Court,” he said.

Kate Bedingfield, a White House spokeswoman, said that the administration is working to submit nominations for Senate confirmation as soon as possible and that President Obama “appreciates the critical work” that the court “does on behalf of America’s veterans.”

Legal experts also have blamed the high number of vacancies in the regular federal courts on delays at the White House and in Congress.

At the “veterans court,” the number of cases is surging for several reasons. As veterans from previous wars age, they are facing economic uncertainty and service-related health problems, prompting new claims. With no statute of limitations, the current caseload is mostly appeals from peacetime veterans and those who served in the first Persian Gulf War, Vietnam and, in some instances, Korea and World War II.

Still, the crisis at the court is likely to get worse, lawyers and judges say, pointing to a looming wave of new appeals expected from the VA, where injured Iraq and Afghanistan veterans are filing claims at historically high rates. New claims at the VA have nearly doubled since 2005, and of the 1.3 million living combat veterans discharged since 2001, nearly half have filed for benefits.