Substitute Appellants

Board Substitutions (button at top of the page that says 'Add Substitute')

In the unfortunate case where a veteran passes away before their case is resolved, a dependent (e.g., a surviving spouse or a child) can legally step into the shoes the veteran and continue on with the case. This can also happen after a case has been resolved and the case has been dismissed through a death dismissal. This dependent is referred to in Caseflow as a substitute appellant. (The process is sometimes called "Appellant substitution.")

(Note that this was initially referred to internally as "granted substitution" and there may be some lingering references to this. Early feedback was that this was confusing terminology, because the granting of the substitution was performed by a Regional Office, not by the Board. Entering a substitute appellant into Caseflow is not "granting" the substitution, and we therefore avoid that term.)

Only Clerk of the Board users may add a substitute appellant to an appeal. In dev or demo environments, the "Clark Bard" user (COB_USER) can be used, and you can search for the file number 54545454.

Information on Substitute Appellants is stored in the AppellantSubstitution model.

Here is a chart that shows different scenarios in which an appellant substitution may occur.

A same appeal substitution is when an appeal's information is updated after the appellant substitution occurs, but no new appeal is created. In this scenario, the appellant substitution object's source_appeal and target_appeal are the same object.

A separate appeal substitution is when a new appeal is created after the appellant substitution occurs. In this scenario, the appellant substitution object's source_appeal and target_appeal refer to separate objects.

Requirements to allow for a substitution

For pre-dispatch and post-dispatch there are different checks.

Each pre and post-dispatch checks require all bullet points in addition to the general checks to be true

General

• does the appeal support substitution?
  • is it an AMA appeal?
  • is the appellant the veteran?
  • is the case type “original”?
• does the appeal not have a substitution?
• is one of user’s organizations Clerk of the Board?

Pre-dispatch

• is feature toggle listed_granted_substitution_before_dismissal enabled?
• is the user a COB Admin or is veteran appellant is deceased?
  • veteran has a date of death and appellant is veteran?

Post-dispatch

• is the user a COB Admin or does the appeal have any decision issues with “Dismissed, Death”?