Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca13-23-01577/USCOURTS-ca13-23-01577-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Denis McDonough
Appellee
Florence Petite
Appellant

Document Text:

NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.

United States Court of Appeals 

for the Federal Circuit

______________________

FLORENCE PETITE,

Claimant-Appellant

v.

DENIS MCDONOUGH, SECRETARY OF 

VETERANS AFFAIRS,

Respondent-Appellee

______________________

2023-1577

______________________

Appeal from the United States Court of Appeals for 

Veterans Claims in No. 19-5815, Chief Judge Margaret C. 

Bartley.

______________________

Decided: December 16, 2024

______________________

KENNETH M. CARPENTER, Law Offices of Carpenter 

Chartered, Topeka, KS, argued for claimant-appellant.

 KELLY GEDDES, Commercial Litigation Branch, Civil 

Division, United States Department of Justice, 

Washington, DC, argued for respondent-appellee. Also 

represented by BRIAN M. BOYNTON, MARTIN F. HOCKEY, JR.,

PATRICIA M. MCCARTHY; Y. KEN LEE, ANDREW J. STEINBERG, 

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2 PETITE v. MCDONOUGH

Office of General Counsel, United States Department of 

Veterans Affairs, Washington, DC.

______________________

Before DYK and STOLL, Circuit Judges, and MURPHY,

District Judge.

1

MURPHY, District Judge.

Florence Petite (“Ms. Petite”), the daughter of veteran 

Darren J. Petite, appeals a judgment of the United States 

Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims (“Veterans Court”) in 

Petite v. McDonough, No. 19-5815 (Vet. App. Mar. 4, 2023). 

Ms. Petite applied for an award of attorney’s fees and 

expenses pursuant to the Equal Access to Justice Act 

(“EAJA”), 28 U.S.C. § 2412, which the Veterans Court 

rejected.

For the reasons provided below, we conclude that the 

Veterans Court erred as a matter of law when it failed to 

analyze whether the Department of Veterans Affairs 

(“VA”)’s administrative position, the policy adopted by the 

Board of Appeals for Veterans Claims (“Board”), was 

substantially justified. We vacate and remand.

BACKGROUND

Ms. Petite appeals from the decision of the Veterans 

Court denying her EAJA application. Ms. Petite’s father, 

Darren J. Petite, served honorably on active duty in the 

United States Army from October 1993 to October 1999. 

He was found totally and permanently disabled as a result 

of his service-connected disabilities.

Established by Congress in 1973, the Civilian Health 

and Medical Program of the Department of Veterans 

1 Honorable John F. Murphy, District Judge, United 

States District Court for the Eastern District of 

Pennsylvania, sitting by designation.

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PETITE v. MCDONOUGH 3

Affairs (“CHAMPVA”) provides health care benefits to 

eligible children and other dependents of disabled 

veterans. Ms. Petite received CHAMPVA benefits as a 

dependent of her father from 2008 until 2017, when the VA 

informed Ms. Petite that her entitlement to benefits ended 

on her eighteenth birthday because she was no longer 

enrolled full-time in school. Ms. Petite filed a notice of 

disagreement with the VA, arguing that it was unfair to 

terminate her benefits. In December 2017, the VA issued a 

decision confirming that Ms. Petite was no longer entitled 

to receive CHAMPVA benefits. 

Ms. Petite appealed to the Board and informed it that 

she was a part-time student and worked from two to six

hours per week. Relying in part on a VA policy manual in 

effect at the time, the Board found that Ms. Petite was not 

qualified for CHAMPVA benefits because she was not a 

full-time student. Ms. Petite appealed the Board’s decision 

to the Veterans Court, which reversed and remanded, 

holding that the governing statutes did not require Ms. 

Petite to be a full-time student and directing the Board to 

readjudicate Ms. Petite’s claim.

Ms. Petite then filed an application for attorney’s fees 

and expenses under the EAJA, which mandates the award 

of attorney’s fees to a prevailing party in cases brought 

against the United States, unless the position of the United 

States is found to have been “substantially justified or . . .

special circumstances make an award unjust.” 28 U.S.C. 

§ 2412(d)(1). The Secretary of the VA opposed Ms. Petite’s 

application. The Veterans Court denied Ms. Petite’s 

application, finding that the Secretary’s position was 

substantially justified at the administrative and litigation 

phases. Ms. Petite sought reconsideration, which the 

Veterans Court denied. She now appeals to our court, 

arguing that the Veterans Court failed to assess whether 

the Secretary’s position was substantially justified at the 

administrative stage.

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4 PETITE v. MCDONOUGH

DISCUSSION

I

Our jurisdiction to review a decision of the Veterans 

Court is limited by 38 U.S.C. § 7292. We must “hold 

unlawful and set aside” any regulation or interpretation 

relied upon by the Veterans Court that is: “(A) arbitrary, 

capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in 

accordance with law; (B) contrary to constitutional right, 

power, privilege, or immunity; (C) in excess of statutory 

jurisdiction, authority, or limitations, or in violation of a 

statutory right; or (D) without observance of procedure 

required by law.” § 7292(d)(1). But we may not review

challenges to factual determinations or to laws or 

regulations “as applied to the facts of a particular case.” 

§ 7292(d)(2).

Ms. Petite does not challenge the Veterans Court’s 

finding that the Secretary’s litigation position before the 

Veterans Court was substantially justified; rather, she 

argues that the Veterans Court failed to examine the 

Secretary’s position at the administrative stage (i.e., the 

Board’s decision). The Secretary argues that we lack 

jurisdiction because Ms. Petite’s challenge is an application 

of law to fact. The Veterans Court’s correctly stated the 

law: “[t]he Secretary bears the burden of demonstrating 

that his position was substantially justified at both the 

administrative and litigation stages.” J.A. 3. And because 

of this correct statement of law, the Secretary concludes

that any inquiry into the Veterans Court’s later statement 

that “the Secretary’s position in this case at the 

administrative and litigation stages was not unreasonable”

is an improper review of the application of law to fact. 

Appellee’s Br. 9–11.

The Secretary is of course correct that we lack 

jurisdiction to review challenges to factual determinations

or to laws or regulations “as applied to the facts of a 

particular case.” § 7292(d)(2). But that is not the issue 

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PETITE v. MCDONOUGH 5

before us. Here, the Veterans Court correctly quoted the 

legal standard but then did not use it. Therefore, we are 

not reviewing the Veterans Court’s application of law to 

fact but rather determining whether the Veterans Court

applied a different standard than the one it espoused. 

“[W]hether the Veterans Court applied the correct legal 

standard in evaluating whether the government’s position 

was ‘substantially justified’ for purposes of the EAJA is a 

legal determination that falls squarely within the scope of 

our appellate jurisdiction.” Patrick v. Shinseki, 668 F.3d 

1325, 1329–30 (Fed. Cir. 2011). And we have this authority

“[e]ven where factual disputes may remain.” Sneed v. 

Shinseki, 737 F.3d 719, 724–26 (Fed. Cir. 2013) (quoting

Lamour v. Peake, 544 F.3d 1317, 1321 (Fed. Cir. 2008)).

2 

The Secretary relies on Cook v. Principi, 353 F.3d 937, 

940 (Fed. Cir. 2004) to assert that we lack jurisdiction over 

all questions related to substantial justification because 

they are inherently factual. Not so. Unlike in Cook, we 

need not assess whether the Veterans Court made an 

“erroneous factual determination.” Id. Our inquiry is 

limited to whether the Veterans Court actually used the 

test that it espoused. Notably, Cook involved a statute that 

gave the Veterans Court discretion “to affirm, modify, or 

reverse a decision of the [Board] or to remand the matter, 

as appropriate.” Id. at 939. The appellant argued that “the 

2 In Sneed, we found jurisdiction to review “whether 

the Veterans Court applied an improperly narrow 

standard” even though the Veterans Court cited the correct 

legal standard — one that had been endorsed by this court. 

737 F.3d at 724, 726–27. Jurisdiction was appropriate 

because the Veterans Court “recit[ed]” the established 

“open-ended” standard but then employed a narrow, closed 

standard. Id. at 726. Accordingly, we vacated and 

remanded to the Veterans Court for further proceedings 

consistent with the correct legal standard. Id. at 729. 

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6 PETITE v. MCDONOUGH

Veterans Court erred by not remanding his case.” Id. at 

940. Any inquiry on appeal would have necessarily 

involved questioning factual determinations to assess

whether the Veterans Court’s declination of remand was 

“appropriate.” Id. at 939–41. No such discretion is present 

here. 

There is no dispute that the Veterans Court must 

determine whether the Secretary’s position was 

“substantially justified” at both the administrative and 

litigation stages. Patrick, 668 F.3d at 1330. Deciding 

whether the Veterans Court actually applied this standard 

does not require us to second-guess the Veterans Court’s 

factual determinations. Accordingly, we have jurisdiction 

over that question.

II

The Veterans Court did not assess whether the 

Secretary’s position was substantially justified at the 

administrative phase. “[A] determination as to whether 

the government’s position was substantially justified 

requires a thorough evaluation of the legal and factual 

support for the position that it adopted.” Id. at 1333. 

The Secretary seeks to avoid vacatur by pointing to the

Veterans Court’s statement that “[the Secretary’s] 

administration position, which mirrored his litigation 

position, was consistent with VA policy.” Appellee’s Br. 9. 

To be sure, we may not question the fact of whether the 

Secretary’s position was the same at both stages, but it 

does not necessarily follow that the purported position was 

substantially justified at both stages. 

The Veterans Court’s analysis focuses entirely on how 

the Secretary’s arguments during the litigation stage at the 

Veterans Court were substantially justified. And there is 

essentially no discussion of the Secretary’s justifications at 

the administrative stage (i.e., the policy adopted by the 

Board). Although the Veterans Court stated that the 

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PETITE v. MCDONOUGH 7

Secretary’s administrative position was substantially 

justified for the same reasons as the Secretary’s litigation 

position, the opinion fails to provide “a thorough evaluation 

of the legal and factual support for the position that it 

adopted.” Patrick, 668 F.3d at 1333.

For example, the Veterans Court discussed in detail 

how the Secretary’s litigation position “was based on the 

Secretary’s belief that section 1781 contained a program 

specific definition of ‘child’” and that “the Secretary 

identified legislative history that he believed was 

consistent with his position.” J.A. 4–5. These statutory 

arguments were not explicitly discussed in the Board’s 

decision at the administrative stage.

3 Yet the Veterans 

Court’s analysis in the first appeal started and ended with

“the plain language of the[] statutes,” J.A. 91, and 

characterized the Board’s decision as citing only to

“controlling regulations,” not statutes, J.A. 84. 

The Board’s decision to terminate Ms. Petite’s benefits

based on her age and lack of full-time student status — at 

the administrative stage — relied primarily on 38 C.F.R. 

§ 3.57(a)(1) and the CHAMPVA Policy Manual. J.A. 77. 

The Board’s decision stated that “[f]or CHAMPVA 

purposes, pursuit of a course of instruction at an approved 

educational institution according to 38 C.F.R. 

§ 3.57(a)(1)(iii) must be on a full-time basis” and cited to 

the “CHAMPVA Policy Manual Chapter 1, Section 2.5 II.B

(last accessed on August 13, 2019).” J.A. 77. But the cited 

3 The Board’s decision includes only two passing 

references to 38 U.S.C. § 1781, each of which lacks any 

explanation of the Secretary’s reasons for importing the 

definition of “child” from another subsection. The record 

reflects that any further justification by the Secretary, such 

as the legislative history of 38 U.S.C. § 1781, did not appear

until the litigation stage. 

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8 PETITE v. MCDONOUGH

regulation does not include a full-time requirement, and we 

cannot confirm the content of the Manual effective when 

the Board made its decision because the Manual was never 

placed in the record. 

An examination by the Veterans Court of the Manual 

effective in 2019 may or may not reveal that the Board was 

substantially justified in taking the position that children 

of veterans were required to be enrolled in a full-time 

course of study to maintain benefits eligibility. Whether 

the effective Manual demonstrates a lack of substantial 

justification is a fact issue over which we lack jurisdiction, 

so vacatur is appropriate here. Stillwell v. Brown, 46 F.3d 

1111, 1113 (Fed. Cir. 1995). 

CONCLUSION

The Veterans Court is tasked with assessing whether 

the Secretary’s position was substantially justified at both

the administrative and litigation phases. Here, the 

Veterans Court did not assess whether the Secretary’s 

position was substantially justified at the administrative 

stage. We reject the Secretary’s assertion that we may 

overlook this omission because the Veterans Court stated 

the correct standard. We vacate the Veterans Court’s 

decision and remand the case for determination of whether 

the Secretary’s position was substantially justified at the 

administrative phase. 

VACATED AND REMANDED

COSTS

The appellant shall have her costs.

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