When the Freund v. Collins settlement was first proposed, I wrote about what it meant: the VA had closed thousands of legacy disability appeals through a tracking-database error, and a class action was forcing the agency to find and reopen them. If you are new to the case, start with that earlier piece, The VA Closed Thousands of Veterans' Appeals by Mistake. This is the update: on June 8, 2026, the VA announced that the case has a fairness hearing scheduled for August 13, 2026. That hearing is the step that decides whether the settlement becomes real, so it is worth knowing where things stand and what, if anything, you need to do.

Where the Case Stands Now

A fairness hearing is where the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims decides whether a proposed class settlement is fair, reasonable, and adequate before approving it. The Freund hearing is set for August 13, 2026, at 10:00 a.m. in Washington, DC, and the court is expected to livestream it and post recordings afterward.

Two things follow from that timing. First, the settlement is not final yet. Until the court approves it, the audit-and-reactivation machinery it describes is not binding. Second, the window to object to the settlement has already closed. The deadline for class members to file objections was May 15, 2026. So for the vast majority of affected veterans, there is no paperwork to file around the hearing itself. The action item is to understand whether you are in the class and to watch for the VA's notice.

Who the Audit Covers

The case is about legacy appeals, the pre-2019 system, that the Veterans Appeals Control and Locator System, or VACOLS, treated as closed for missing a timely Substantive Appeal (VA Form 9) when the veteran had in fact filed one. The class period runs from December 12, 1990 through February 6, 2025.

The settlement sorts affected veterans into groups:

  • Roughly 28,258 appeals were flagged for a mandatory, one-by-one audit. The VA has to review each, and where it confirms an improper closure, reactivate the appeal.
  • Another 64,599 files contain documents that could qualify as a Substantive Appeal. Veterans in this group are to receive notice of their right to ask the VA to review the closure.
  • A further set of veterans may have been affected but will not receive a letter. If your legacy appeal went silent and you never got a decision explaining why, you can raise it with the VA or an accredited representative on your own rather than waiting to be found.

What Approval Would Require

If the court approves the settlement at or after the August hearing, the VA is bound to work through the flagged files, identify the appeals it closed in error, reactivate them, and notify class members of their status and their right to challenge a closure.

Reactivation restores your place in line and preserves your original effective date. It does not decide the appeal. If a reactivated appeal later succeeds, the award reaches back to when you first filed, which is why these cases can carry years of retroactive benefits. One disability attorney quoted in reporting on the settlement illustrated the potential range as anywhere from tens of thousands of dollars at a low rating to more than a million at a total rating, depending on the rating and how far back the effective date reaches. Treat that as an illustration of the stakes, not a promise. Nobody gets a check for being in the class. You get your appeal back, and then it has to be won on the merits.

What to Do Now

  • Watch your mail. The settlement runs on VA-issued notices. If a letter arrives reactivating an old appeal or telling you about your review rights, read it closely and note any response deadline it sets.
  • Check your own appeal status. If you can see that a legacy appeal was closed and you never got a decision, that is the pattern this case is about. An accredited Veterans Service Officer can help you confirm whether it looks like a VACOLS error.
  • Do not wait on the hearing for an outcome. Even after approval, the audit will take time to work through a system that is already backlogged.

The Bottom Line

The August 13 hearing moves Freund v. Collins from a proposed deal toward a binding one, but it does not change what affected veterans should do: keep your old appeal on your radar, read every VA letter, and act on the deadlines those letters carry. The settlement is the VA being made to clean up its own database error. The veterans who come out of it whole are the ones paying attention when their file comes back up.