Mathis v. McDonald

645 F. App'x 1009
Procedural entryThis page is a short order in Mathis v. McDonald. Read the opinion of the Court — 834 F.3d 1347
Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit·Decided April 12, 2016·No. 2016-1226·Unpublished

Opinion

PER CURIAM.

Geiry L. Mathis (“Mathis”) appeals from a decision of the United States Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims (the “Veterans Court”) remanding certain of his claims to the Board of Veterans’ Appeals (the “Board”) and affirming the Board’s rejection of other claims. See Mathis v. McDonald, No. 14-0314, 2015 WL 5255331 (Vet.App. Sept. 10, 2015); see also Resp’t’s App. (“R.A.”) 1-23. For the reasons that follow, we affirm in part and dismiss in part.

BackgRound

Mathis served on active duty in the U.S. Army from June 1968 to September 1969, and suffered a gunshot wound to the left side of his head during combat in the Republic of Vietnam. Mathis’s attempts to receive disability benefits for that injury are chronicled in his three prior appeals to this Court, see Mathis v. McDonald, 625 Fed.Appx. 539 (Fed.Cir.2015); Mathis v. Shinseki 484 Fed.Appx. 565 (Fed.Cir.2012); Mathis v. Shinseki, 494 Fed.Appx. 78 (Fed.Cir.2012); accordingly, we only detail the history relating to the present appeal.

In May 1989, the Board issued a decision denying Mathis a disability rating in excess of 10% for tinnitus with headaches. R.A. 6. Mathis moved to revise that rating in March 2007 on the basis of clear and unmistakable error (“CUE”). R.A. 7. Mathis alleged that the Board should have rated his tinnitus and headaches separately, that the Board should also have given him a rating for tinnitus in each ear, and that the VA committed malfeasance in denying his claims. R.A. 7.

The Board denied those claims in 2007, but the Veterans Court vacated and remanded the Board’s decision because the Board did not separately address each allegation of CUE, and the court did not agree with the Board’s conclusion that Mathis simply disputed the' manner in which the Board weighed the evidence. R.A. 7. In 2010, the Board again dismissed Mathis’s CUE claims as disputing the Board’s weighing of the evidence. R.A. 8. The Veterans Court again vacated the Board’s dismissal of Mathis’s CUE claims and remanded, again determining that the Board had not adequately explained why Mathis’s claims amounted to no more than a dispute over the weighing of evidence. R.A. 9.

Mathis also sought benefits for post-traumatic stress disorder (“PTSD”) in a parallel line of cases. In November 1987, and again in May 1989, the Board denied service connection for PTSD, concluding that the necessary symptoms were not shown by the medical evidence. R A. 6. In July 1995, the regional office (“RO”) reopened Mathis’s claim and awarded service connection for PTSD, with a 100% disability rating effective January 31, 1994, later made effective as of January 20, 1991. R.A. 6-7. Mathis has since alleged that he made claims for service connection for PTSD in 1983 and 1985, and that those claims remain unadjudicated. R.A. 7-8.

In December 2013, the two lines of cases converged in a Board decision finding no CUE in the two 1989 decisions. Specifically, the Board found that there was no CUE in denying a rating in excess of 10% for tinnitus with headaches, not assigning two separate ratings for bilateral tinnitus, not assigning a separate rating for headaches, and denying earlier service connection for PTSD. R A. 9.

The Veterans Court reversed the Board’s finding that there was no CUE in not giving Mathis a separate rating for headaches, but remanded to the Board for *1012 the determination whether correct application of the governing regulations would have changed the outcome. R.A. 13. The Veterans Court also determined that the Board failed to address Mathis’s allegations of malfeasance, despite those allegations having been “twice remanded ... for the Board to adjudicate.” R.A. 14-15. Therefore, the Veterans Court again remanded the claim for the Board’s consideration. R.A. 15. The Veterans Court affirmed, however, the Board’s determinations that the 1989 governing regulations did not provide for a separate rating for tinnitus for each ear, that Mathis was awarded the maximum disability rating for tinnitus, that there was no CUE in the Board’s 1989 denial of service connection for PTSD, and that the 1983 and 1985 PTSD claims were not unadjudicated because they were subsumed in Mathis’s adjudicated 1987 claim. R.A. 15-21.

Mathis timely appealed, seeking to invoke our jurisdiction under 38 U.S.C. § 7292.

Discussion

Our jurisdiction to review decisions of the Veterans Court is limited by statute. We may review a Veterans Court decision with respect to the validity of a decision on a rule of law or the validity or interpretation of any statute or regulation that was relied upon by the Veterans Court in making its decision. Id. § 7292(a). Unless a constitutional issue is presented, we have no jurisdiction to review questions of fact or the application of a law or regulation to a particular set of facts. Id. § 7292(d)(2).

We begin with the issue decided by the Veterans Court adverse to Mathis and involving the interpretation of a regulation. The Veterans Court determined that the regulations in 1989 provided a maximum of 10% disability rating for tinnitus, and that there was no legal basis on which to award separate ratings for tinnitus .in each ear. R.A. 15. We see no error in the interpretation made by the Veterans Court. Indeed, we have already upheld the Secretary’s interpretation of the regulations as providing a single rating for tinnitus, and a maximum disability rating of 10%. Smith v. Nicholson, 451 F.3d 1344, 1350-51 (Fed.Cir.2006).

Mathis next argues that the Veterans Court erred in finding that the Board’s denial of his 1987 PTSD claims adjudicated his 1983 and 1985 claims because the 1983 and 1985 claims were different from the 1987 claims. Appellant’s Br. 3. This argument does not challenge the interpretation of a regulation or statute, however, and instead challenges the manner in which the Veterans Court applied established law to the facts of his 1983, 1985, and 1987 PTSD claims. Accordingly, that issue is beyond our jurisdiction. See 38 U.S.C. § 7292(d)(2). Moreover, Mathis’s disagreement with the Veteran’s Court’s af-firmance of the 1989 denial of service connection for PTSD merely challenges the application of law to facts, and similarly is beyond our jurisdiction.

Mathis also argues that the Veterans Court misinterpreted 38 C.F.R. §§ 3.105(a), 4.1, 4.2, and 4.7, which are respectively directed to the effect of a reversed Board decision, the requirements for a disability rating, the interpretation of examination reports, and the impact of two possible ratings for the same disability. Review of his allegations, however, reveals that Mathis is in fact challenging the manner in which the Board or the Veterans Court applied those regulations to the facts of his case. Livingston v. Derwinski,

Mathis v. McDonald, 645 F. App'x 1009 (Fed. Cir. 2016).

645 F. App'x 1009 (Mathis v. McDonald) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

Related