A PACT Act Grant Does Not Close an Older Pending Appeal, Two Courts Rule

Two court decisions, one from March 2025 and one from August 2026, address what happens to an older service-connection appeal that was still pending when VA granted the same condition under the PACT Act. Both courts rejected the idea that the PACT Act grant made the older appeal moot. That matters because a PACT Act grant cannot reach back before August 10, 2022, while the older claim, if it succeeds, could.

Chisholm Chisholm & Kilpatrick (CCK Law) raised this issue in a recent video. Our guide to VA effective dates and back pay covers the general rules.

A grant on one of the PACT Act's presumptions is an award under a liberalizing law, and the effective-date statute at 38 USC 5110(g) does not let such an award start before the law's own effective date. For grants on PACT Act presumptions, the earliest such date is August 10, 2022, the day the Act was signed into law. VA's regulation at 38 CFR 3.114(a) allows payment that far back only if VA received the claim, or reviewed it on its own, within one year of that date, and the evidence shows the veteran met every eligibility requirement on that date and continuously until the claim. That makes the date the earliest possibility, not a guarantee.

For the PACT Act, VA treated a claim or intent to file received by August 14, 2023, a deadline it had extended from August 9, 2023, as timely for payment back to August 10, 2022. That window has closed. For a claim VA received later, 38 CFR 3.114(a)(3) allows payment for up to one year before receipt, and the continuous-eligibility requirement still applies.

Separately, section 407(b) of the Act bars VA from denying a claim for a condition the Act made presumptive just because the claim was filed before that condition's effective date or date of applicability. That stops a denial on timing grounds but does not move an award on the presumption before the law's effective date.

The Johnson case began with a veteran who served as a security guard at Nam Phong Royal Thai Air Force Base in 1973. A regional office denied his 2016 claims for lack of herbicide exposure, and he appealed to the Board of Veterans' Appeals. In March 2023, with that appeal pending, the regional office granted service connection under the PACT Act's new herbicide exposure presumption for service at any United States or Royal Thai base in Thailand from January 9, 1962 through June 30, 1976, effective August 10, 2022. The Board called the older appeal moot because of those grants, and on March 26, 2025, the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims (CAVC) reversed.

The CAVC held that once a claim is on appeal to the Board and not finally resolved, a later regional office decision in a separate claim stream cannot resolve that appeal. It also held that the PACT Act claims were separate claims because they rested on a basis of entitlement that did not exist when the veteran first filed. Appealing the PACT Act grant's effective date did not change that result, the court said, since a veteran should not be penalized for trying to preserve the earliest possible date.

Hepler involved hypertension and a veteran whose claim for direct service connection was on appeal before the PACT Act took effect. The Board granted hypertension on the PACT Act presumption without addressing the direct claim, telling the regional office only to consider the direct-basis evidence when it assigned an effective date. The CAVC then dismissed the veteran's appeal as moot because he had received service connection under the PACT Act. On August 3, 2026, in a precedential opinion, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed.

The Federal Circuit treated the direct service-connection claim and the PACT Act claim as separate and distinct claims based on different events. It pointed to section 407(a) of the PACT Act, which provides that nothing in the Act shall be construed to prevent VA from processing a claim for a newly presumptive condition as a direct service-connection claim. The court directed that the Board must either grant or deny the direct claim, or remand it to the regional office with specific instructions. Success on that direct claim could pay benefits for a period before August 10, 2022, which a PACT Act grant alone cannot do.

Hepler's holding concerns a direct claim already pending on appeal before the Act took effect. The court did not announce a broader rule covering every theory of entitlement. Neither decision means the older claim will be granted, since the Board can still deny it.

The rulings turn on which body decided what, so it helps to sort your decisions by who issued them.

If a Board decision granted the condition on a PACT Act presumption while a direct claim for it was on appeal, check what it did with the direct claim. In Hepler, the Board never called the direct claim moot and never granted, denied or remanded it; it only told the regional office to weigh the direct-basis evidence when setting the effective date. The Federal Circuit still required the Board to grant, deny or remand it.

If a regional office decision set August 10, 2022 while a direct claim for the same condition was on appeal, look at the reason it gives for that date. In Hepler, the regional office treated the Board's grant as a final determination of the issue on appeal and never evaluated the direct claim. The Federal Circuit held that without a Board decision on the direct claim, the regional office had no authority to award direct service connection or to set an effective date for it.

If no earlier claim for the condition was pending when the Act became law, these rulings do not reach the grant, since only a separate, non-PACT basis could pay for time before August 10, 2022. For that grant, what counts is when VA received the claim or intent to file, measured against the August 14, 2023 cutoff.

VA and the Board, not this article, decide whether an older appeal is still open and what effective date applies. The Johnson and Hepler opinions are cited below.