Opinion ID: 3065770
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: APA Challenge to Delays in Compensation Claim

Text: Appeals In considering Veterans’s APA claim with respect to benefits adjudication, we are, once again, bound by the Supreme Court’s instruction in Norton that: “General deficiencies in compliance, unlike the failure to issue a ruling . . . lack the specificity requisite for agency action.” Norton, 542 U.S. at 66. Veterans’s APA claim concerning timely and acceptable adjudication of veterans’ service-connected death and disability claims cannot proceed because Veterans do not assert that the VA “failed to take a discrete agency action that it is required to take.” Id. at 64. The district court erred in stating: “It is uncontested the adjudication of benefits claims is a discrete agency action that the VA is required to take.” That analysis failed to consider the cornerstone of Veterans’s APA claim. Veterans are challenging pervasive deficiencies in the adjudication process that harm their members, not delays in discrete benefits adjudications that the VA is required to make. As discussed above, agency action to remedy widespread delays is not a discrete, “required” action under § 706(1). On this basis alone, Veterans are barred from seeking statutory relief that is dependent upon the VA’s waiver of sovereign immunity under the APA. See Norton, 542 U.S. at 63-65. We therefore affirm the district court’s dismissal of Veterans’s APA claim, on the basis that it does not meet the APA requirement for reviewability.33 33 Because Veterans are barred from seeking statutory relief under the APA, we need not consider the VA’s alternative arguments that 38 U.S.C. § 502 or § 511 also bar consideration of Veterans’s statutory claims. VETERANS FOR COMMON SENSE v. SHINSEKI 6353 B. Due Process Clause Challenge to Delays in Compensation Claim Appeals 1 First we must consider whether we may hear Veterans’s constitutional claim. The VA argues that we lack jurisdiction to do so, because the VJRA divests all federal courts but the Veterans Court and the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit of jurisdiction to review any question concerning veterans benefits. We reject that contention. In our view, the VJRA does not strip district courts of jurisdiction to hear constitutional challenges to the VA’s system-wide conduct, divorced from challenges to individual benefits determinations. The VA points to two sections of the VJRA, sections 502 and 511. Neither applies here. a. Section 502. 38 U.S.C. § 502 states, “An action of the Secretary to which [5 U.S.C. §§ 552(a)(1), 553 (the APA provision concerning rulemaking)] refers is subject to judicial review. Such review . . . may be sought only in the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.” The district court determined that, given § 502’s grant of exclusive jurisdiction to the Federal Circuit, “any challenge by [Veterans] to VA regulations is not reviewable in this Court.” It found that provision relevant because, in its view, granting Veterans the relief they seek “would invariably implicate VA regulations.” Consequently, it held that “any such challenge is reviewable only in the Federal Circuit” under § 502. By its plain text, however, § 502 concerns only “judicial review” of “action[s] of the Secretary” as defined by the APA. We are thus presented with Norton’s complement: for the same reason that the delays Veterans challenge are not “action[s] of the Secretary” that are reviewable under the APA, see supra at 6333-37, they are not actions that may be 6354 VETERANS FOR COMMON SENSE v. SHINSEKI challenged in the Federal Circuit only. Section 502 is clear in its purpose of directing APA-based challenges to the VA’s rules and regulations to a single federal court, in derogation of the APA’s general grant of judicial review in all courts. So we cannot read its jurisdiction-stripping provision any more broadly than the narrow class of actions that may actually be challenged under the APA after Norton. In addition to § 502’s plain text, our precedent dictates this result. In Preminger v. Principi, 422 F.3d 815 (9th Cir. 2005), we held that § 502 bars review outside the Federal Circuit of “direct challenges to VA rules and regulations” only. Id. at 821 (emphasis added). And in Nehmer v. Department of Veterans Affairs, 494 F.3d 846 (9th Cir. 2007), we determined that § 502 concerns only suits that “directly challenge either the merits of the VA’s regulation or the VA’s rulemaking authority.” Id. at 857-858 (emphasis added). Veterans challenge neither, but only the VA’s failure to discharge its duty to veterans in a short enough time to avoid depriving them of their property interest without due process. Finally, we find that the district court’s concern that “an order expediting claims adjudications . . . would force the VA to alter or repeal some of [its] regulations,” and thus would violate § 502, was entirely misplaced. As just explained, § 502 limits judicial review of discrete agency actions, not claims of the type asserted here. Veterans’s only surviving claim with regard to benefits is a facial constitutional challenge to the VA’s actual conduct, not its codified rules, so § 502 is not implicated at all. See Nehmer, 494 F.3d at 858-859 (where plaintiffs “challenge[d] the actions of the VA in failing to comply with the terms of” a court order, § 502 did not bar review “irrespective of the existence of the VA regulations” that were adopted in response to the order, because the claim was not a “facial challenge to VA regulations”). While the VA may choose to modify its regulations to comply with a remedial order, that future remedy would not convert Veterans’s suit into an action for judicial review VETERANS FOR COMMON SENSE v. SHINSEKI 6355 of an agency action subject to § 502. Thus, § 502 does not affect our ability to review Veterans’s constitutional claims. b. Section 511. The district court understood § 511 to preclude “review of individual benefits decisions,” but not “facial constitutional challenges to the VA benefits system.” Nonetheless, the court determined that § 511 barred review, because “the determination of whether the delay is unreasonable may depend on the facts of each particular claim,” which individually may not be reviewed in district court. Section 511 blocks review of “decision[s] of the Secretary” as to any “questions of law and fact necessary to a decision by the Secretary under a law that affects the provision of benefits.” 38 U.S.C. § 511(a) (emphasis added). Under the statute’s plain text, there are three problems with the district court’s analysis. First, the conduct Veterans challenge is not a “decision” within the meaning of § 511. While the term “decision” is not expressly defined in the statute, we understand it in the context of the statute to mean individual benefits adjudications — the type of individualized decisions Congress sought to keep out of the district courts. See H.R. Rep. No. 100-963, 1988 U.S.C.C.A.N. 5782, 5803-5804. Section 1156, for example, discusses “ratings decision[s]” by the Secretary that determine the degree of disability of a temporarily disabled veteran. 38 U.S.C. § 1156(b)(1)(B). Section 3107 concerns vocational rehabilitation benefits for veterans, and provides that “[t]he Secretary shall review [a veteran’s] statement [of disagreement with his rehabilitation plan] and render a decision on such review . . . .” 38 U.S.C. § 3107(c)(3). Later sections that refer to § 511 shed further light on the meaning of “decisions” as “individual determinations.” Section 5104, for example, is titled “Decisions and notices of decisions,” and explains that the Secretary must give a claimant notice “of a decision by the Secretary under § 511 of this title affecting the provision of benefits to a claimant.” 38 U.S.C. § 5104(a) (emphasis 6356 VETERANS FOR COMMON SENSE v. SHINSEKI added). And § 7104, which outlines the jurisdiction of the Board of Veterans’ Appeals, provides, “All questions in a matter which under section 511(a) of this title is subject to decision by the Secretary shall be subject to one review on appeal to the Secretary. Final decisions on such appeals shall be made by the Board [of Veterans’ Appeals].” 38 U.S.C. § 7104. Veterans do not challenge a “decision by the Secretary” here. Instead, they challenge systemic delays in the benefits adjudication process that deprive them of the aid to which they are entitled. Second, even if the term “decision” did apply, § 511 precludes judicial review only of “decision[s]” actually made by the Secretary. As with Veterans’s constitutional challenge to the delays in the delivery of mental health care, whatever “questions of law” the challenge may require us to answer are not questions the VA has already answered. Nor has the VA made a final decision in Veterans’s members’ appeals; that their appeals languish undecided is the very basis for their claim.34 We thus agree with the Federal Circuit’s interpretation of this provision: “Section 511(a) does not apply to every challenge to an action by the VA. As we have held, it only applies where there has been a ‘decision by the Secretary.’ In the context of the history of this provision, the statute plainly contemplates a formal ‘decision’ by the Secretary or his delegate.” Bates v. Nicholson, 398 F.3d 1355, 1365 (Fed. Cir. 2005) (citation omitted). Veterans do not challenge the VA’s initial ratings decision in their members’ cases here, just the VA’s systematic failure to timely render decisions on appeal. Finally, unlike § 502, § 511 does not grant exclusive jurisdiction to any agency or court over a class of legal claims, except challenges to “decision[s]” within the meaning of § 511 that have actually been made by the Secretary. Nothing 34 The VA’s argument (Gov’t Br. 41 n.10) that “there is no question that the VA is actually deciding benefits claims” is thus misplaced; § 511 is concerned only with extant, not potential, decisions. VETERANS FOR COMMON SENSE v. SHINSEKI 6357 in § 511 prevents claims that could be (but have not yet been) adjudicated by the Secretary, and then reviewed by the Court of Veterans Claims and the Federal Circuit, from being raised in another court of competent jurisdiction instead. Our view in this regard accords with that of the D.C. Circuit: Section 511(a) does not give the VA exclusive jurisdiction to construe laws affecting the provision of veterans benefits or to consider all issues that might somehow touch upon whether someone receives vet- erans benefits. Rather, it simply gives the VA authority to consider such questions when making a decision about benefits, and . . . prevents district courts from “review[ing]” the Secretary’s decision once made. Broudy v. Mather, 460 F.3d 106, 112 (D.C. Cir. 2006) (emphasis added). Thus in Broudy, the plaintiffs’ claim that VA officials had obstructed their access to benefits proceedings by withholding or covering up relevant information was not barred by § 511 because “the Secretary ha[d] never decided th[o]se questions.” Id. at 114. The Federal Circuit agrees as well. In Hanlin v. United States, 214 F.3d 1319 (Fed. Cir. 2000), that court explained: We do not read [§ 511] to require the Secretary, and only the Secretary, to make all decisions related to laws affecting the provision of benefits. Rather, once the Secretary has been asked to make a decision in a particular case (e.g., through the filing of a claim with the VA), 38 U.S.C. § 511(a) imposes a duty on the Secretary to decide all questions of fact and law necessary to a decision in that case.” Id. at 1321. Consequently, the plaintiff in that case, an attorney for a veteran to whom the VA was supposed to send a portion of his client’s benefit award as a fee, was permitted 6358 VETERANS FOR COMMON SENSE v. SHINSEKI to sue the VA in the Court of Federal Claims, notwithstanding the fact that his “claim arises under [the attorney’s fees provision of title 38], which is ‘a law that affects the provision of benefits’ within the meaning of” § 511. Id. at 1321. We recognize, however, that the Sixth Circuit has construed § 511 more broadly than have the D.C. Circuit and Federal Circuit. In Beamon v. Brown, 125 F.3d 965 (6th Cir. 1997), the court considered a putative class action brought by veterans to challenge delays in the processing of veterans’ benefits. The court found these claims barred by § 511, reasoning: Such a challenge raises questions of law and fact regarding the appropriate methods for the adjudication of veterans’ claims for benefits. Determining the proper procedures for claim adjudication is a necessary precursor to deciding veterans benefits claims. Under § 511(a), the VA Secretary shall decide this type of question. Id. at 970. We fail to understand how the Sixth Circuit squared its reasoning with the plain text of the statute, which makes no mention of “precursors” or “procedures,” but only decisions. Its conclusion is all the more odd in light of § 511(b), which excepts from § 511(a) challenges to the VA’s rules and regulations. Even if the term “decision” did encompass the Secretary’s “[d]etermin[ation] [of] the proper procedures for claim adjudication,” that determination would typically be made by rule and thus exempt from § 511(a)’s bar to review. Not only do we find more persuasive the positions of the D.C. Circuit and Federal Circuits, but we would be prohibited from adopting the Sixth Circuit’s view even if we were inclined to do so because of the particular nature of this case. The Sixth Circuit relied heavily in its analysis on the availability to the plaintiffs of an alternate forum for their constituVETERANS FOR COMMON SENSE v. SHINSEKI 6359 tional claims in the Veterans Court. Beamon, 125 F.3d at 971-974. But, as the district court recognized, the Veterans Court would lack jurisdiction over the type of claims raised by the plaintiffs here, even if they were raised by Veterans’ members individually. The Veterans Court has acknowledged that “[n]owhere has Congress given this Court either the authority or the responsibility to supervise or oversee the ongoing adjudication process which results in a BVA decision.” Clearly v. Brown, 8 Vet. App. 305, 308 (1995) (emphasis added); see also Dacoran v. Brown, 4 Vet. App. 115 (1993) (noting that constitutional challenges could be “presented to this Court only in the context of a proper and timely appeal taken from such decision made by the VA Secretary through the BVA”) (emphasis added). Moreover, organizations such as Veterans could not present claims to the Veterans Court, whose jurisdiction is limited to appeals from the BVA. If we were to adopt the Sixth Circuit’s broad reading of § 511, then the plaintiff organizations would be deprived of any forum in which to raise their claims.35 As the Beamon court itself noted, the possibility of 35 The plaintiff organizations are, of course, separate entities from their members. We fail to understand how the dissent can suggest that these independent corporate persons litigating in their own names, although borrowing their members’ standing, are no different from a group of individual veterans litigating as a plaintiff class. See Dissenting op. at 6381-82. Indeed, the Supreme Court years ago rejected the argument that “[b]oth associational standing and [class actions] are ‘designed to serve precisely the same purpose.’ ” United Auto. Workers v. Brock, 477 U.S. 274, 288 (1986). The Court explained, While a class action creates an ad hoc union of injured plaintiffs who may be linked only by their common claims, an association suing to vindicate the interests of its members can draw upon a pre-existing reservoir of expertise and capital. Besides financial resources, organizations often have specialized expertise and research resources relating to the subject matter of the lawsuit that individual plaintiffs lack. These resources can assist both courts and plaintiffs. As one court observed of an association’s 6360 VETERANS FOR COMMON SENSE v. SHINSEKI interpreting the predecessor to § 511 “as a complete bar to the judicial review of all challenges to such decisions” has led the Supreme Court to decide that the provision did not preclude district courts from hearing constitutional challenges relating to veterans benefits, for fear “of the constitutional danger of precluding judicial review of constitutional claims.” Id. at 971-972 (citing Johnson v. Robison, 415 U.S. 361 (1974)). For that same reason, we could not construe § 511 so broadly here given the specific nature of this case.36 The purpose of the VJRA was to keep thousands of suits role in pending litigation: “[T]he interest and expertise of this plaintiff, when exerted on behalf of its directly affected members, assure ‘that concrete adverseness which sharpens the presentation of issues upon which the court so largely depends for illumination of difficult . . . questions.’ ” Id. at 289 (first internal quotation marks and citations omitted). That is, an organization is much more than a mere “tool, like class actions, for vindicating individual members’ interests.” Dissenting op. at 6382. 36 A recent case before the D.C. Circuit considered a challenge similar to Veterans’s claim here as to the benefits adjudication system. See Vietnam Veterans of Am. v. Shinseki, 599 F.3d 654 (D.C. Cir. 2010). That case was decided solely on standing grounds, as noted supra at 6321-22 n.16. See Vietnam Veterans, 559 F.3d at 661-662. In the six pages of dicta that preceded that holding, however, the court discussed Beamon favorably before stating, “[o]ur discussion of this issue is tentative.” Id. at 659-661. We give no weight to the tentative dictum of other courts. In any event, Vietnam Veterans considered Beamon not for its holding as to § 511, but rather for its finding that the adequate alternative remedy in the Veterans Court barred review of the plaintiffs’ APA-based challenge, because APA § 704 precludes review if an alternate remedy exists elsewhere. Id. at 659 (citing Beamon, 125 F.3d at 967-970). Vietnam Veterans went on to muse, “we think it virtually inevitable that it would be held that the [Veterans Court] has exclusive jurisdiction to hear due process claims” too, because those claims were “essentially identical” to the plaintiffs’ “unreasonable delay claim” under the APA. Id. at 660 & n.7. We are aware of no principle that limitations on a statutory cause of action may be transferred wholesale to a constitutional claim simply because it arises from the same underlying events. VETERANS FOR COMMON SENSE v. SHINSEKI 6361 concerning individual benefits determinations from crowding the dockets of the federal courts, on top of the social security cases and immigration petitions for review that already keep them busy reviewing agency actions. Although the VA and the dissent struggle mightily to ignore the nature of this suit, it is plain that a structural constitutional challenge is beyond the jurisdiction of the Veterans Court to hear and, due in part to the Secretary’s prolonged indecision on appeals, outside the preclusive sweep of § 511. 2 Turning, at last, to the merits of Veterans’s constitutional claim, we hold that the district court rightly acknowledged that “many veterans have a protected property interest [under the Due Process Clause] as applicants for and recipients of SCDDC benefits.” Accord Cushman v. Shinseki, 576 F.3d 1290, 1298 (Fed. Cir. 2009) (holding that veterans’ benefits are a protected property interest under the Fifth Amendment, because they are statutorily mandated and nondiscretionary in nature). Confronted with the stark and sobering evidence of inexplicable delays in the benefits adjudication process, the district court stated that it could not conclude that the due process rights of veterans were violated by the absence of procedures designed to reduce delays in claim appeals, “in light of many of the factors creating these delays.” To reach this conclusion, the district court relied primarily on the Seventh Circuit’s decision in Wright v. Califano, 587 F.2d 345 (7th Cir. 1978), which found that 180-day delays in the adjudication of social security benefits did not constitute a due process violation under Mathews v. Eldridge, given the Social Security Administration’s “severe resource constraints.” Id. at 354-356. The court found Wright’s “reasoning applicable to the present case.” In so ruling, however, the district court failed to properly analyze Veterans’s due process claim by conducting a 6362 VETERANS FOR COMMON SENSE v. SHINSEKI Mathews analysis of its own based on the facts of this case. “ ‘[D]ue process,’ unlike some legal rules, is not a technical conception with a fixed content unrelated to time, place and circumstances.” Cafeteria & Restaurant Workers v. McElroy, 367 U.S. 886, 895 (1961). Instead, “due process is flexible and calls for such procedural protections as the particular situation demands.” Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U.S. 471, 481 (1972). Wright itself acknowledged that there could come a time “when due process is no longer due process because past due”; it just found that, on the facts of that case, that time had not yet been reached. Wright, 587 F.2d at 354. So we must undertake that analysis to see if process is “past due” here by “examin[ing] the importance of the private interest and the harm to this interest occasioned by delay; the justification offered by the Government for delay and its relation to the underlying governmental interest; and the likelihood that the interim decision may have been mistaken.” FDIC v. Mallen, 486 U.S. 230, 242 (1988). [13] First, we find that veterans’ property interest in their service-connected death and disability compensation could not be more vital — many recipients of such benefits are totally or primarily dependent upon that compensation for their financial support and the support of their families. A veteran receives no monies from the VA until his claim has been approved, which means that during the initial period of claim assessment and during the pendency of any appeal he and his family suffer tremendous privation. To pursue a claim to completion, for example, may take in excess of 4.4 years, even excluding “the time between an . . . initial decision [at the Regional Office level] and a veteran’s NOD filing, which may be as long as one year”). During the pendency of such appeals, the record before us shows that many veterans perish, after living in want. The district court’s memorandum of decision states, for example, that “[b]etween October 1, 2007, and March 31, 2008, alone, at least 1,467 veterans died during the pendency of their appeals,” thus extinguishing their appeals. VETERANS FOR COMMON SENSE v. SHINSEKI 6363 The private interest is thus strong — as is, indeed, the public interest, given the nature of the claimants. Second, the VA attributes the delays in claims appeals, in part, to its placing a priority on adjudicating initial claims. We fail to understand, however, why prioritizing initial claim adjudications must come at the expense of timely appeals processing. Much of the delay appears to arise from gross inefficiency, not resource constraints. We are particularly doubtful, for example, that any government interest could justify the 573-day average delay for a Regional Officer to certify an appeal to the BVA after receiving a veteran’s form requesting an appeal — a step that we understand to be a ministerial task. We are as confounded as the Chairman of the BVA, who at trial “was unable to explain” the overall “lengthy delay in the resolution of appeals.” If resource constraints are an issue, the VA has not asserted as much, and the record does not suggest that staffing or funding shortages are responsible for the delays in the adjudication process. To the contrary, the district court found that the VBA is rapidly increasing its staff. [14] Finally, we might find the VA’s argument more compelling if it were not clear that prioritizing initial determinations over appeals has not worked, given the high reversal rate of those determinations. Only forty percent of initial decisions appealed are affirmed.37 Between 19 and 44 percent of 37 See also Transcript of Oral Arg., Astrue v. Ratliff, No. 08-1322 (U.S. Feb. 22, 2010): [Assistant to the Solicitor General Anthony] YANG: [The reversal rate in the VA context is] in the order of either 50 or maybe slightly more than 50 percent. It might be 60. But the number is substantial that you get a reversal . . . . CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: Well, that’s really startling, isn’t it? In litigating with veterans, the government more often than not takes a position that is substantially unjustified? MR. YANG: It is an unfortunate number, Your Honor. And it is — it’s accurate. 6364 VETERANS FOR COMMON SENSE v. SHINSEKI remands by the BVA, when appellate decisions are eventually reached, are “avoidable,” meaning “an error [was] made by the R[egional] O[ffice] before it certifie[d] the appeal to the B[oard].” It is unlikely that initial adjudications can approach perfect accuracy even if priority is given to them. Under those circumstances, we do not find that the VA’s interest outweighs veterans’ in ensuring that those initial determinations that are incorrect get corrected quickly, even if the VA did actually have to make such a trade-off. Given that 60 percent of all appeals result in grants or remands, the risk of prolonged erroneous deprivation during these delays is high. We therefore find that the delays in the VA’s claims appeals process amount to deprivation of property without due process. We find support for our conclusion in the reasoning of other courts facing similar balancing determinations. Some courts, like the Seventh Circuit in Wright, have found no due process violation when faced with relatively short delays in the provision of benefits and substantial government interests. In Barrett v. Roberts, 551 F.2d 662 (5th Cir. 1977), for example, the Fifth Circuit found that 8- to 20-day delays in the receipt of a single month’s welfare check did not deny due process, because those delays occurred during a semi-annual review for program eligibility, which was necessary to the government’s interest in preventing undeserving recipients from claiming entitlements. In Littlefield v. Heckler, 824 F.2d 242 (3d Cir. 1987), the Third Circuit determined that a ninemonth delay between the issuance of an ALJ’s “recommended decision” in a social security benefits case and a final decision by the Social Security Administration’s Appeals Council was constitutional, given the volume of cases before the Appeals Council. Id. at 246-247. And the Second Circuit found that a 19-month delay in Medicare reimbursements of claims of under $500, caused by the government’s requirement that claim disputes be heard by a private hearing officer prior to being adjudicated by an ALJ, was justified because (1) the private interest was low where the amount of benefits was small and not related to financial need, (2) the lack of inforVETERANS FOR COMMON SENSE v. SHINSEKI 6365 mation about the risk of erroneous deprivation during the delay, and (3) the government’s substantial interest in resolving more claims through the informal procedure. Isaacs v. Bowen, 865 F.2d 468 (2d Cir. 1989). By contrast, the Third Circuit determined that a three-year and nine-month delay in evaluating an application for a disabled child’s annuity under the Railroad Retirement Act violated due process. Kelly v. R.R. Retirement Bd., 625 F.2d 486 (3d Cir. 1980). The applicant sought disability benefits to sustain her while she fought severe depression. The court found it “wholly inexcusable” that “the administrative review process of a single disability application extended to nearly four years.” Id. at 490. It reasoned, “Although there is no magic length of time after which due process requirements are violated, we are certain that three years, nine months, is well past any reasonable time limit, when no valid reason for the delay is given.” Id. The court rejected the Board’s argument that the delay was necessary to gather evidence, because it found that no decision issued until more than one year after all evidence was gathered. Moreover, it found “the backlog of cases and limited resources of the Board” to be no excuse, because “[w]hatever its internal problems, the Board has the power to implement regulations that would accelerate the agency review process. Four years is totally out of phase with the requirements of fairness.” Id. at 491. And in Kraebel v. New York City Department of Housing Preservation & Development, 959 F.2d 395 (2d Cir. 1992), the Second Circuit found a likely due process violation when the city delayed granting property tax benefits to a landlord who was entitled to the tax benefits after rehabilitating her buildings as part of a city program. It took one and a half years for the city to determine that the landlord was in fact entitled to the benefit. But, the court reasoned, “even before the state makes a definitive decision as to entitlement, the road to that determination must be paved by due process.” Id. at 405. The court remanded for the district court to consider 6366 VETERANS FOR COMMON SENSE v. SHINSEKI in the first instance whether the delay was justified, weighing the landlord’s interest in prompt payment for her voluntary participation in a socially beneficial program against the difficulty faced by the city in making eligibility determinations. Id. at 406. We are confident that the present case fits comfortably within the latter category of cases rather than the former. This is not a case involving short but justified delays of critical benefits, cf. Barrett, moderate delays of important benefits caused by a system overload, cf. Littlefield, or long delays of minor benefits due to government interest in efficiency, cf. Isaacs. Instead, like Kelly, this case involves critical benefits to sustain those incapacitated by mental disability, delayed for an excessive period of time without satisfactory explanation. [15] Again, we remand to the district court with the instruction that it conduct evidentiary hearings in order to determine what procedures would remedy the existing due process violations in the VBA claims adjudication process. The hearings shall explore what procedural protections are most appropriate to permit the appeals of veterans to be expedited in the most efficient manner, with a particular emphasis on the procedural protections necessary for veterans suffering the most financial hardship during the adjudication of their claims. The district court may consider the need for setting maximum time periods for determinations at various stages of the claims adjudication process and/or the need for a procedure to expedite claims where emergency circumstances are shown to exist. As stated above, the district court may seek the assistance of a Magistrate Judge or Special Master in cre- ating and implementing a remedial plan, and the court should first encourage the parties to meet and confer to propose a remedial plan. In the end, the district court shall either approve an agreement reached by the parties or enter an appropriate order instructing the VBA to provide Veterans with the procedural safeguards to which they are entitled. VETERANS FOR COMMON SENSE v. SHINSEKI 6367