§7288 Annual Report

Summary

Each year the chief judge of the Court must send a report to the Senate and House Veterans’ Affairs Committees. The report covers the Court’s workload for the fiscal year that ended during the previous year. The report must say how many appeals, petitions, and applications under section 2412 of title 28 the Court received. It must give totals for how many cases the Court decided overall, and how many decisions came from the Clerk, a single judge, a multi-judge panel, or the full Court. It must list each kind of outcome (for example, settlement, upholding a decision, sending a case back, vacating, dismissal, reversal, grant, or denial). The report must give median times for various steps: from filing an appeal to decision by the Court, Clerk, single judge, or multiple judges; from filing a petition to decision; from filing a section 2412 application to decision; and from when briefing is finished to decision. It must also say how many oral arguments there were, how many cases were appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, how many appeals, petitions, and section 2412 applications were still pending at the end of the year, how many cases had been pending more than 18 months, any service by a recalled retired judge, and an assessment of each judge’s workload (time per case type, number of cases reviewed, and comparison to other Federal judges).