Marva Sneed sought Dependency and Indemnity Compensation after the Board denied service connection for her husband’s death. She intended to appeal to the Veterans Court, but after promptly seeking retained counsel, she received a letter from the attorney one day before the filing deadline stating the attorney would not represent her and incorrectly stating the deadline was later than it actually was. Sneed then filed a pro se notice of appeal 29 days late.

The Veterans Court dismissed the appeal as untimely and concluded that equitable tolling did not apply because the recognized tolling examples did not include attorney misconduct by a non-VA official. The Federal Circuit vacated and remanded. It held that the Veterans Court used an improperly narrow approach by treating prior tolling cases as exhaustive and by failing to consider whether attorney abandonment could qualify as an extraordinary circumstance under equitable tolling doctrine. Relying on Holland and Maples, the court concluded that attorney abandonment may justify tolling of the 120-day deadline in § 7266(a), so long as diligence is also shown. The decision is important because it extends tolling doctrine in a veteran-friendly way and rejects a closed-list approach to extraordinary circumstances.

The 120-day deadline in 38 U.S.C. § 7266(a) is subject to equitable tolling, and attorney abandonment may qualify as an extraordinary circumstance warranting tolling when the appellant also exercised due diligence.

A veteran is not necessarily bound by retained counsel’s abandonment when missing the Veterans Court appeal deadline; the court must evaluate the tolling request under a flexible equitable standard rather than a closed list of factual patterns.

This decision gives appellants a stronger tolling argument when late filing was caused by attorney abandonment rather than ordinary neglect. It also limits the Veterans Court’s ability to deny tolling by insisting that only previously recognized categories can qualify.

Treating equitable tolling as limited to a closed set of factual scenarios and refusing to consider attorney abandonment as a possible extraordinary circumstance.

A surviving spouse promptly hires counsel to appeal a Board denial, but counsel withdraws the day before the deadline and gives incorrect filing instructions. The appellant files late after trying unsuccessfully to find new representation and argues that the filing deadline should be equitably tolled.

Use this case to argue that late Veterans Court appeals caused by counsel abandonment should be analyzed under Holland/Maples-style equitable tolling, with focus on diligence and the severity of counsel’s breakdown in representation.

Holland v. Florida, Maples v. Thomas, Henderson v. Shinseki, Bailey v. West, Mapu v. Nicholson