CCK Win: VA Must Stop Applying Intent to File to Wrong Claims

CCK Law: Our Vital Role in Veterans Law

In Hoffman v. Collins, No. 24-7834 (Vet. App. Aug. 24, 2026), the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims held that VA may not apply an intent to file to a continuously pursued Supplemental Claim when doing so produces no earlier effective date. Chisholm Chisholm & Kilpatrick (CCK Law) represented the veteran in that appeal.

The ruling closes a trap in VA’s claims rules. A veteran who filed an intent to file, then a Supplemental Claim, then a new claim inside the same year could watch VA apply the intent to file to the wrong claim and lose months of back pay. Below: what the Court decided, and how to check your own record.

Key details from Hoffman v. Collins:

• The effective date for the veteran’s stroke residuals moved from July 21, 2023, to Feb. 28, 2023, the date VA received his intent to file.
• Two related issues, erectile dysfunction and a Special Monthly Compensation award that depended on it, went back to the Board of Veterans’ Appeals for more findings.
• At the time this article was published, the public text of the governing regulation still contains language the courts have rejected.

What Did the Court Decide in Hoffman v. Collins?

The Court held that VA exceeds its legal authority when it applies the intent to file framework, including 38 CFR § 3.155(d)(1)(ii), to a continuously pursued Supplemental Claim. The Court’s logic was that Congress already set the filing date for Supplemental Claims. Therefore, applying the intent to file to a Supplemental Claim adds nothing, and only wastes the earlier effective date from a different claim.

A continuously pursued Supplemental Claim is a Supplemental Claim filed within one year of an earlier VA decision on the same benefit. For those claims, 38 USC § 5110(a)(2) treats the date of application as the date the initial application was filed. That date is always earlier than an intent to file that was filed afterward, so the intent to file has nothing left to do.

Watch CCK Law Partner Brad Hennings — a former Veterans Law Judge at the Board of Veterans’ Appeals — walk through Hoffman v. Collins, No. 24-7834 (Vet. App. 2026):

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What Happened in Hoffman v. Collins?

Robert Hoffman, an Air Force veteran, filed an intent to file in February 2023, a Supplemental Claim in May, and a new claim in July. VA attached the intent to file to the May filing. The July claim, the one the Veteran needed dated earlier, got nothing.

The detail that makes the outcome plain: All three conditions in the May Supplemental Claim had been claimed and denied before February 2023. Their claim dates already beat the intent to file, so it gave them nothing. VA spent it anyway.

The Court reversed the Board’s ruling that § 3.155(d)(1)(ii) applied to the Supplemental Claim and ordered VA to assign a Feb. 28, 2023, effective date for the stroke residuals. It set aside and remanded the erectile dysfunction and Special Monthly Compensation issues because the Board never found when the erectile dysfunction began.

Why Did VA Use Intent to Files on Supplemental Claims?

VA used intent to files on Supplemental Claims because of a sentence that VA never went back and fixed. Paragraph (b) of the regulation creates the intent to file option: Tell VA a claim is coming, complete the application within one year, and the claim counts as filed on the intent to file date. Paragraph (d)(1)(ii) then limits it. Only one complete claim per benefit may attach to each intent to file, and where several arrive within the year, only the first gets it.

For years, VA took the position that the intent to file rules did not reach Supplemental Claims at all. In 2021, the Federal Circuit rejected that in Military-Veterans Advocacy v. Secretary of Veterans Affairs, 7 F.4th 1110 (Fed. Cir. 2021). VA did not defend the exclusion, promised a rewrite, and never delivered one, so the court struck the exclusion down.

That ruling pulled Supplemental Claims into the framework but said nothing about the first-in-time sentence. VA filled the gap itself: Whichever claim arrived first absorbed the intent to file.

Why Did the Court Find That VA Should Not Have Used Intent to Files on Supplemental Claims?

The Court came to this finding because Congress had already answered the question, and an agency cannot regulate over a rule Congress has set. Section 5110(a)(2) fixes the date of application for a continuously pursued claim. The regulation would fix it at a later date. The statute controls.

The Court also called the practical result arbitrary. Congress gives a veteran a year to file a Supplemental Claim; VA gives a veteran a year to finish a claim started with an intent to file. A veteran who needs both windows can use only one. Finding no reason for that tradeoff, the Court held the practice arbitrary, capricious, and in excess of VA’s statutory authority under 38 USC § 7261(a)(3).

One limit shapes how far the decision reaches. The Court agreed with VA that the text of § 3.155(d)(1)(ii) does cover Supplemental Claims, rejecting the Veteran’s argument that the paragraph headings carve them out. The holding is that the regulation is invalid as applied to continuously pursued Supplemental Claims — not that it never reaches Supplemental Claims.

The Intent to File Regulations Are (Currently) Still Incorrect

Anyone who pulls up 38 CFR § 3.155 today will find both problems still in the text. The opening sentence still says the intent to file paragraph does not apply to Supplemental Claims — the exact language the Federal Circuit invalidated in 2021. The first-in-time sentence is still there too, with nothing signaling that a court has limited it.

Brad Hennings, a CCK Law partner and a former Veterans Law Judge at the Board of Veterans’ Appeals, put it this way in the firm’s video: “If you read section 3.155 online today, you will not find any of this. The first-in-time sentence is still there. So is the older line saying the intent to file rules do not apply to Supplemental Claims, even though that was invalidated five years ago. The published regulation is not a reliable guide to what the law is.”

Learn more about intent to file from Robert Chisholm, founding partner at CCK Law:

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How Can You Tell if VA Applied Your Intent to File to Your Supplemental Claim?

The question is factual, not legal: What date did VA receive your intent to file, and which claim did VA attach it to? Both answers are in your claims file.

1. Find the date VA received your intent to file; VA sends an acknowledgment letter. The paper form is VA Form 21-0966, but a saved online application or a recorded phone call also counts.
2. Find the date VA received your complete application, usually VA Form 21-526EZ.
3. Check whether you filed a Supplemental Claim in between, and whether it came within one year of the decision it challenged.
4. Compare the effective date on your rating decision to your intent to file date. If it matches the application date instead, that gap is the issue.
5. Read the rating decision or Board decision for any reference to § 3.155(d)(1)(ii), or to the intent to file being associated with another claim.

As Hennings notes in the same video: “If you think this issue affected your effective date, start with your own file. Find the date of your intent to file and find out what VA associated it with. That is a factual question about your record, and it is answerable.”

Can the Hoffman v. Collins Decision Help You Challenge Your Effective Date?

That depends almost entirely on whether your decision is still open.

If your appeal is pending. Hoffman v. Collins is a precedential decision of the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims. If a Higher-Level Review, Board appeal, or court appeal is pending and your effective date is at issue, the decision can be raised there now.

If a review window is still open. Under 38 CFR § 3.2500, you generally have one year from the date VA mails notice of a decision to request Higher-Level Review or appeal to the Board. A Board decision can be appealed to the Court within 120 days.

For an effective-date error of this kind, Higher-Level Review is often a closer fit than a Supplemental Claim. A Supplemental Claim requires new and relevant evidence under 38 CFR § 3.2501. A court decision is law, not evidence.

If your decision is already final. This is much harder. A clear and unmistakable error motion generally cannot rest on a later change in how a statute or regulation is interpreted; the regulation says so directly. Whether this decision is a change in interpretation, or instead a holding that VA never had authority to apply the rule this way, will have to be litigated.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Hoffman v. Collins apply to pension claims too, or just compensation?

The Court’s reasoning rests on § 5110(a)(2), which is not limited to compensation, but the case itself involved compensation. The holding is written in terms of continuously pursued Supplemental Claims rather than any single benefit.

Does an intent to file ever help a Supplemental Claim?

Yes. The 2021 Federal Circuit ruling placed Supplemental Claims inside the intent to file framework, and this decision did not undo that. An intent to file can still help a Supplemental Claim filed more than one year after the prior decision, because that claim does not get the earlier date Congress gave continuously pursued claims.

Can an intent to file give me an effective date earlier than my disability began?

No. An effective date is the later of the date of application or the date entitlement arose. An intent to file can move the application date earlier, but VA must still find the disability existed then. That is why the Court could order an earlier date for stroke residuals and had to send the other issues back. See retroactive awards.

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