08/23/2026
Disability Rights Watch — meaningful veterans’ disability development
On August 21, 2026, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued a precedential decision in Miller v. Collins affecting how some veterans can obtain earlier effective dates for VA disability compensation when previously missing military service records are later found.
The court held that the current version of 38 C.F.R. § 3.156(c) is triggered when the VA receives or associates the newly discovered service-department records with the claim file, rather than by the date the veteran originally filed the claim.
The case involved a veteran who originally sought benefits for PTSD in 1987. Additional service records were obtained years later and helped establish entitlement, but the court upheld the VA’s refusal to award benefits all the way back to the original 1987 claim under the older, more favorable version of the regulation.
Why it matters: veterans can still obtain reconsideration when relevant official service records are discovered later, but this decision makes it harder in some older cases to use those records to secure decades of retroactive disability compensation. Because the Federal Circuit has nationwide jurisdiction over appeals involving veterans’ benefits, this precedent can affect VA claims across the United States.
I did not identify another comparably significant new development since the previous report involving ADA/Section 504 enforcement, Olmstead, Medicaid HCBS, Social Security disability policy, Texas prosthetic legislation, housing, transportation, education, assistive technology, or healthcare accessibility.
