42 U.S.C. § 300aa–12 — Court jurisdiction

(a) General rule The United States Court of Federal Claims and its special masters decide whether a petitioner qualifies for compensation under the Program, and how much. The court may issue and enforce orders it considers necessary to make sure any awarded compensation is paid promptly. (b) Parties In every case started by a petition, the Secretary is named as the respondent, must take part, and is represented the way federal agencies normally are in litigation. Within 30 days of being served with a petition, the Secretary must publish notice of it in the Federal Register. The assigned special master must let interested people submit relevant written information — either about evidence relating to the Vaccine Injury Table, or about any claim in the petition concerning the matters described in section 300aa–11(c)(1)(C)(ii). (c) United States Court of Federal Claims special masters The Court of Federal Claims has an office of special masters, made up of no more than 8 special masters, appointed and reappointed by a majority vote of the court's judges; one is designated chief special master. The judges may remove a special master for incompetence, misconduct, neglect of duty, physical or mental disability, or other good cause. A special master's position may be eliminated if the judges, advised by the chief special master, decide the office's services are no longer needed. Each special master is appointed for a 4-year term, subject to removal as above; special masters serving as of December 19, 1989, kept serving out 4 years from their original appointment, and the chief special master then in office finished out that term. Pay is set by the judges with the chief special master's advice: the chief special master's pay matches level IV of the Executive Schedule, and other special masters' pay cannot exceed level V. The chief special master administers the office and its staff, provides for efficient handling of petitions, and handles other assigned duties; appoints and sets the pay and duties of administrative staff, who can be removed by the chief special master for good cause; manages the office's budget and administrative affairs under rules that apply to federal magistrate judges; coordinates the shared, unreimbursed use of Court of Federal Claims resources; and reports annually to Congress and the court's judges on the number of petitions filed and how they were resolved, when the underlying injuries and deaths occurred, the types and amounts of awards, how long petitions took to resolve, program costs, and recommendations for changes to the Program. (d) Special masters When the clerk receives and files a petition, it goes to the chief special master, who assigns a special master to it. Special masters recommend rules to the court, and the court — considering those recommendations — adopts rules that must: provide for a less adversarial, faster, more informal process; use flexible, informal evidence standards; allow summary judgment; let parties submit arguments and evidence in writing without routinely requiring oral hearings or cross-examination; and limit discovery, replacing the usual civil discovery rules. A special master assigned to a petition must decide whether compensation is owed and how much, including findings of fact and legal conclusions, generally within 240 days of filing — not counting suspended time — subject to court review under subsection (e). While handling a case, a special master may require reasonable and necessary evidence, information, testimony, and documents, must let interested people submit relevant written information as described in subsection (b), and may hold hearings as reasonable and necessary; there is no discovery beyond what the special master requires. A special master must suspend proceedings once for 30 days if either party asks; further suspensions may follow if the special master finds them reasonable and necessary, up to 150 days total. For petitions involving vaccines given before October 1, 1988, if the chief special master finds the workload places an undue burden on the parties or special masters, proceedings may be suspended for up to 30 months total (no more than 6 months at a time), on top of the other suspension time. Information submitted in a proceeding generally cannot be shared with anyone who is not a party, without the submitter's written consent. A special master's or the court's decision must be publicly disclosed, except that if it would include trade-secret or privileged and confidential commercial or financial information, or medical or similarly private files whose disclosure would be an unwarranted invasion of privacy, and the person who submitted that information objects, the decision is disclosed with that information left out. (e) Action by United States Court of Federal Claims After a special master issues a decision, either party has 30 days to file a motion asking the court to review it, and the other party then has 30 days to respond. If a motion is filed, the court has jurisdiction to review the record and may: uphold the special master's findings and conclusions; set aside any finding or conclusion that is arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or not in accordance with law, and issue its own findings and conclusions instead; or send the petition back to the special master with instructions. The court must complete its review within 120 days of the response being filed — not counting time the petition spends back with a special master on remand — and may allow up to 90 days for a remand. If no review motion is filed, or if the court upholds the special master's decision, the clerk immediately enters judgment matching that decision. (f) Appeals The Court of Federal Claims' findings and conclusions on a petition are final, except that the Secretary or an aggrieved petitioner may appeal the judgment to the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, within 60 days of the date of the judgment. (g) Notice If a special master fails to decide a petition within the 240 days required by subsection (d)(3)(A)(ii) (not counting suspension time or time spent on remand), or if the Court of Federal Claims fails to enter judgment within 420 days after the petition was filed (with the same exclusions), the special master or court must notify the petitioner that they may withdraw the petition, or may choose to let it remain pending, under section 300aa–21(b).