Batiste v. Collins

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
• Decided: May 21, 2026
• Docket: 25-1106
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

Case: 25-1106 Document: 47 Page: 1 Filed: 05/21/2026

NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.

United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ______________________

FRANK D. BATISTE, Claimant-Appellant

v.

DOUGLAS A. COLLINS, SECRETARY OF VETERANS AFFAIRS, Respondent-Appellee ______________________

2025-1106 ______________________

Appeal from the United States Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims in No. 23-7626, Senior Judge Mary J. Schoelen. ______________________

Decided: May 21, 2026 ______________________

J. BRYAN JONES, III, J B Jones III LLC, Lafayette, LA, argued for claimant-appellant.

AUGUSTUS GOLDEN, Commercial Litigation Branch, Civil Division, United States Department of Justice, Wash- ington, DC, argued for respondent-appellee. Also repre- sented by ERIC P. BRUSKIN, PATRICIA M. MCCARTHY, BRETT SHUMATE; CARLING KAY BENNETT, DEREK SCADDEN, Office Case: 25-1106 Document: 47 Page: 2 Filed: 05/21/2026

of General Counsel, United States Department of Veterans Affairs, Washington, DC. ______________________

Before TARANTO, SCHALL, and CHEN, Circuit Judges. PER CURIAM. Frank D. Batiste served in the United States Army from 1972 to 1975. On August 18, 2006, he applied on his own (i.e., without representation) for a pension, under 38 U.S.C. §§ 1513, 1521, based on a disability traceable not to his service but to a motor vehicle accident in 2000. In that pension application, Mr. Batiste responded “no” to the question of whether he was “claiming a special monthly pension [SMP] because [he] need[s] the regular assistance of another person,” J.A. 93 (question 2), a question embod- ying the relevant standard for receipt of an SMP addition to the otherwise-granted pension, see 38 U.S.C. §§ 1502(b), 1521(d); 38 C.F.R. § 3.351(a)(1). In May 2007, the relevant Regional Office (RO) of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) granted Mr. Batiste a pension without a special monthly pension, giving the award an effective date of Au- gust 18, 2006, J.A. 38–41, and basing it on documentation Mr. Batiste submitted from two medical examinations (in 2002 and 2005) and social security records, J.A. 48–66; J.A. 67–69; J.A. 78–82. The RO informed Mr. Batiste that he had one year to appeal, J.A. 40, but he did not do so. On June 15, 2016, Mr. Batiste, now represented by counsel, filed a notice of intent to file a claim for a special monthly pension. J.A. 35. After a VA examination to eval- uate whether Mr. Batiste needed regular aid and attend- ance, the RO granted him an SMP, assigning the award an effective date of June 15, 2016. J.A. 30–35. Mr. Batiste timely filed a Notice of Disagreement seeking an earlier ef- fective date, specifically, August 18, 2006, the date of his earlier pension application. J.A. 27–29. Case: 25-1106 Document: 47 Page: 3 Filed: 05/21/2026

BATISTE v. COLLINS 3

The Board of Veteran’s Appeals found that the June 15, 2016 effective date was correct, J.A. 19–23, but the United States Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims (Veterans Court), at the behest of the Secretary and Mr. Batiste, re- manded the matter to the Board for further consideration, J.A. 10. In November 2023, the Board again found June 15, 2016, to be the proper effective date for the SMP. J.A. 9–15. The Board reasoned that, in completing his applica- tion in 2006, Mr. Batiste was in the best position to know whether he needed regular aid. J.A. 13. And if Mr. Batiste, in May 2007, believed his needs justified an SMP, he could have timely filed a Notice of Disagreement. J.A. 12. The Board also reexamined the medical evidence that Mr. Ba- tiste had submitted in 2006–07 and found that it did not indicate that he required regular aid and attendance. J.A. 13–14. Mr. Batiste appealed to the Veterans Court. He argued that the Board had erroneously focused only on his “no” an- swer to the SMP-related question in his 2006 application and, also, had “ignor[ed] the fact that the evidence submit- ted [in support of the 2006 application] . . . indicated that [he] used a rolling walker and cane,” which, he asserted, amounted to an informal claim for an SMP on August 18, 2006. Batiste Opening Br., Batiste v. McDonough, No. 23- 7626 (Vet. App. May 1, 2024), ECF No. 1 at 3–6 (Batiste CAVC Br.); see 38 C.F.R. § 3.155(a) (2006). The Veterans Court disagreed with Mr. Batiste and affirmed the Board’s decision. Batiste v. McDonough, No. 23-7626, 2024 WL 3897035 (Vet. App. Aug. 22, 2024) (Decision). The Veterans Court ruled that the Board did not clearly err in finding that Mr. Batiste had not submitted an informal claim for an SMP before June 15, 2016, and the Veterans Court came to that conclusion while viewing the 2006 application liberally because Mr. Batiste had ap- plied for his pension in 2006 without counsel. Decision, at *5. The Veterans Court, beyond recognizing the signifi- cance of the “no” answer to the question posed in the Case: 25-1106 Document: 47 Page: 4 Filed: 05/21/2026

pension application, inquired whether a claim for aid and attendance, though not expressly presented, was suffi- ciently implicit in the underlying evidence, including the evidence of his use of a rolling walker and cane (as ex- pressed in his briefing). Id. at *4–5 (citing Sellers v. Wilkie, 965 F.3d 1328, 1337 (Fed. Cir. 2020) and Szemraj v. Prin- cipi, 357 F.3d 1370, 1373 (Fed. Cir. 2004)); see also id. at *4 (citing Batiste CAVC Br., at 3–5). The Veterans Court de- termined that the Board had not erred in deciding that Mr. Batiste’s identified evidence did not give rise to a basis for an informal claim in 2006 or, therefore, justified the as- serted 2006 effective date for the SMP. Id. at *5. Mr. Batiste timely appealed the Decision, invoking our jurisdiction under 38 U.S.C. § 7292. Because this case in- volves no constitutional issue, our jurisdiction is limited to issues of asserted legal error by the Veterans Court, and a challenge of error in a factual finding, or of mere misappli- cation of law to fact, is outside our authority. See, e.g., Per- ciavalle v. McDonough, 101 F.4th 829, 835 (Fed. Cir. 2024). We conclude that Mr. Batiste has presented no issue that we have jurisdiction to decide. His legal argument focuses almost exclusively on asserted Board errors, only once con- tending (and without explaining his conclusion) that “the Board and the [Veterans Court], in turn, erred[.]” Batiste Opening Br. at 14; see id. at 5, 8, 10, 12, 13 (arguing about error in the Board’s decision). And Mr. Batiste otherwise essentially asks us to reweigh the evidence and find “fac- tual error,” id. at 12; see also id. at 1, 5, 7, 8, 9, but we lack jurisdiction to do so. Mr. Batiste stresses that because he was pro se when filing for a pension in 2006, he is owed “[a] liberal and sym- pathetic reading” of his claim under Comer v. Peake, 552 F.3d 1362, 1367–69 (Fed. Cir. 2009). Batiste Opening Br. at 9–11. But he fails to raise a legal argument that would give us jurisdiction. Case: 25-1106 Document: 47 Page: 5 Filed: 05/21/2026

BATISTE v. COLLINS 5

Mr. Batiste aims his allegation of legal error based on Comer at the decision of the Board. But our jurisdiction over legal errors, as relevant here, is limited to legal errors by the Veterans Court. See Janich v. Collins, 168 F.4th 1371, 1374–75 (Fed. Cir. 2026). Mr. Batiste does not iden- tify a Comer error by the Veterans Court. Nor do we see any such error by the Veterans Court, which expressly recognized the relevant principles of Comer. The Veterans Court recognized that Mr. Batiste’s evidence should be given a sympathetic reading, and it re- viewed the evidence, and the Board’s analysis of the evi- dence, including the evidence of a need for a rolling walker and cane, through that lens. Decision, at *5; see Batiste CAVC Br., at 6; Batiste Opening Br. at 8, 9, 12, 13. It con- cluded, applying the governing legal standard to the facts of this case, that there was no ambiguity to resolve. Deci- sion, at *5. In this circumstance, there is no identified legal error that comes within our jurisdiction. In Ellington v. Peake, “the Veterans Court explicitly acknowledged its obligation to sympathetically read [a veteran’s] claims . . . im- plicat[ing] the application of law to fact, a matter over which we lack jurisdiction.” 541 F.3d 1364, 1372 (Fed. Cir. 2008) (cleaned up). Mr. Batiste’s argument about the Vet- erans Court’s treatment of Comer is at most an argument about application of law to fact—an argument we lack ju- risdiction to entertain. To the extent that Mr. Batiste otherwise argues factual error by the Board or the Veterans Court, such an argu- ment is likewise beyond our jurisdiction. That is so even for Mr. Batiste’s reliance, at oral argument in this court, on a statement in his social-security-disability record in Octo- ber 2006 that he could not take a bath, so he took showers instead. Oral Arg. 28:41–29:42, https://www.cafc.uscourts. gov/oral-arguments/25-1106_05052026.mp3; see J.A. 61. In addition, we note, this evidence is not compelling on the Case: 25-1106 Document: 47 Page: 6 Filed: 05/21/2026

aid issue in itself, as reflected in the apparent absence of any singling out of this showering/bathing evidence in his brief here or in the Veterans Court, or even a mention of it in the argument sections of those briefs. Because we are without jurisdiction to rule on the issue presented by Mr. Batiste, we must dismiss his appeal. The parties shall bear their own costs. DISMISSED