HELD:

The proceeds of uncashed veterans’ benefit checks which have been canceled pursuant to the Competitive Equality Banking Act of 1987 (CEBA), Pub. L. No. 100-86, 101 Stat. 552, are not payable unless a claim for them is made within six years after the claim accrues, as required by the Barring Act,

ch. 788, 54 Stat. 1061 (1940) (codified, as amended, at 31 U.S.C. § 3702(b)), regardless of whether the benefit checks were drawn on veterans’ benefit appropriations.  Claims based on checks which have been lost, stolen, paid on a forged endorsement, or were never received, and which have been canceled under the CEBA, must also be presented within the six-year period specified by section 3702(b).  Section 3702(b) is not applicable, however, to a claim made to VA under 38 U.S.C. § 5122 by a payee’s surviving spouse, child, dependent parent, or person who bore the expense of the payee’s last sickness and burial, as specified in 38 U.S.C. 5121(a), for payment of sums represented by a check received by the payee but not negotiated before the payee’s death.  Instead, 38 C.F.R. § 3.1003(a)(1), which states that there is “no time limit for filing a claim to obtain the proceeds” of a check issued to a payee who died prior to negotiating the check, is controlling for claims made under section 5122.