Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca13-23-02359/USCOURTS-ca13-23-02359-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Richard Jasmin
Appellant
Denis McDonough
Appellee

Document Text:

NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.

United States Court of Appeals 

for the Federal Circuit

______________________

RICHARD JASMIN,

Claimant-Appellant

v.

DENIS MCDONOUGH, SECRETARY OF 

VETERANS AFFAIRS,

Respondent-Appellee

______________________

2023-2359

______________________

Appeal from the United States Court of Appeals for 

Veterans Claims in No. 23-698, Chief Judge Margaret C. 

Bartley.

______________________

Decided: January 14, 2025

______________________

RICHARD JASMIN, Eldridge, MO, pro se. 

 STEPHANIE FLEMING, Commercial Litigation Branch, 

Civil Division, United States Department of Justice, 

Washington, DC, for respondent-appellee. Also 

represented by BRIAN M. BOYNTON, WILLIAM JAMES 

GRIMALDI, PATRICIA M. MCCARTHY. 

 ______________________

Case: 23-2359 Document: 31 Page: 1 Filed: 01/14/2025
2 JASMIN v. MCDONOUGH

Before REYNA, TARANTO, and STARK, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM.

Richard Jasmin, proceeding pro se, appeals from an 

order of the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims 

(“Veterans Court”) dismissing his appeal for lack of 

jurisdiction. We affirm.

I

Mr. Jasmin served in the United States Navy from 

2003 to 2008. Subsequent to his active service, Mr. Jasmin 

filed several claims for various types of benefits. The 

relevant claims and decisions of the Secretary of Veterans 

Affairs (“Secretary”) are noted below.

Most pertinent to this appeal is Mr. Jasmin’s filing of a 

Notice of Appeal (“Notice”) in the Veterans Court on 

February 6, 2023. See S. App’x 1.1 In his Notice, Mr. 

Jasmin purported to be appealing from a January 10, 2023 

decision of the Board of Veterans Appeals (“Board”). Id.

The Secretary moved to dismiss Mr. Jasmin’s appeal, 

contending that no January 10, 2023 Board decision exists 

in relation to Mr. Jasmin. To the contrary, according to the 

Secretary, the most recent Board decision concerning Mr. 

Jasmin was issued in October 2022, when the Board 

addressed claims based on gastroesophageal reflux disease

(“GERD”) and other gastrointestinal disabilities, including 

irritable colon disorder. The Secretary reported that Mr. 

Jasmin’s record also contained a January 10, 2023 letter 

from a Department of Veterans Affairs Regional Office 

(“RO”), enclosing a January 9, 2023 RO decision reducing 

Mr. Jasmin’s disability rating for psychotic disorder and, 

consequently, eliminating his eligibility for Total Disability 

based on Individual Unemployability (“TDIU”).

1 “S. App’x.” refers to the supplemental appendix filed 

with the Secretary’s brief.

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JASMIN v. MCDONOUGH 3

The Veterans Court ordered Mr. Jasmin to show cause

as to why his appeal should not be dismissed for lack of 

jurisdiction, instructing him to provide a copy of the 

decision he was intending to appeal. Mr. Jasmin’s response 

did not include a copy of any decision, nor did it identify 

any decision from the Board issued on January 10, 2023. 

As a result, the Veterans Court determined that Mr. 

Jasmin “fail[ed] to identify any final adverse Board 

decision that would be the subject of [its] jurisdiction,” 

because the only Board decision issued on his claims, the 

October 2022 decision, was neither adverse nor final. S. 

App’x 3.

Mr. Jasmin timely appealed.

II

Before us, Mr. Jasmin makes clear that the issue he 

wishes to appeal is the deprivation of his entitlement to 

TDIU, which stems from the RO’s decision to reduce his 

rating for psychotic disorder. The problem for Mr. Jasmin 

is that these determinations were made by the RO, not by 

the Board, and the Veterans Court only has jurisdiction to 

review decisions of the Board. See 38 U.S.C. § 7252(a)

(“[The Veterans Court] shall have exclusive jurisdiction to 

review decisions of the Board of Veterans’ Appeals.”).

A person affected by a decision of the Secretary,

including a decision of an RO, may appeal that decision to 

the Board. See 38 C.F.R. § 20.104(a). Before such a person 

may take an appeal to the Veterans Court, however, he 

must first “present a request for a benefit to the Board, 

then receive a decision on that request.” Maggitt v. West, 

202 F.3d 1370, 1376 (Fed. Cir. 2000). Mr. Jasmin did not 

do so. Instead, he attempted to appeal the January 2023 

decision of the RO, which the Veterans Court lacked 

jurisdiction to review without an intervening appeal of the 

RO’s decision to the Board. See 38 U.S.C. § 7266(a); see also

May v. McDonough, 61 F.4th 963, 965-66 (Fed. Cir. 2023)

(explaining that final decision by Board is generally 

Case: 23-2359 Document: 31 Page: 3 Filed: 01/14/2025
4 JASMIN v. MCDONOUGH

required to appeal to Veterans Court). Thus, the Veterans 

Court correctly dismissed Mr. Jasmin’s appeal.

To the extent Mr. Jasmin wishes to appeal the RO’s 

January 2023 determinations, he must first present them 

to the Board, which he has not yet done. If, alternatively, 

Mr. Jasmin seeks review of the Board’s October 2022 

decision, the Veterans Court lacks jurisdiction over that 

decision because it is neither final (since it ordered a 

remand for further consideration of Mr. Jasmin’s claim for 

irritable colon disorder) nor adverse (as it granted Mr. 

Jasmin’s service connection claim for GERD).

III

We have considered Mr. Jasmin’s remaining arguments 

and find them unpersuasive.2 In particular, we can well 

understand Mr. Jasmin’s frustration at having his 70% 

disability rating for a psychotic disorder reduced to 10%, 

and then losing his eligibility for TDIU, based (at least in 

part) on his failure to appear for a recommended 

evaluation. But our sympathy cannot alter the jurisdiction 

of the Veterans Court. If Mr. Jasmin wishes to invoke the 

jurisdiction of the Veterans Court, he must first obtain a 

final and adverse decision from the Board. As he did not 

do so here, the Veterans Court did not err in dismissing his 

appeal.

For the reasons stated above, we affirm the order of the 

Veterans Court dismissing Mr. Jasmin’s appeal.

AFFIRMED

COSTS

No costs.

2 As the Secretary notes, “Mr. Jasmin does not make 

any specific allegations of fraud but, to the extent he 

believes it is occurring, he may report these allegations to 

the Office of the Inspector General.” Gov’t Br. at 9 n.2.

Case: 23-2359 Document: 31 Page: 4 Filed: 01/14/2025