Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca13-15-07022/USCOURTS-ca13-15-07022-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Ida Dickens
Appellant
Robert A. McDonald
Appellee

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals 

for the Federal Circuit ______________________ 

IDA DICKENS,

Claimant-Appellant

v.

ROBERT A. MCDONALD, SECRETARY OF 

VETERANS AFFAIRS,

Respondent-Appellee

______________________ 

2015-7022

______________________ 

Appeal from the United States Court of Appeals for 

Veterans Claims in No. 13-1303, Judge Lawrence B. 

Hagel.

______________________ 

Decided: March 1, 2016

______________________ 

ZACHARY STOLZ, Chisholm Chisholm & Kilpatrick, 

Providence, RI, argued for claimant-appellant. Also 

represented by NICHOLAS L. PHINNEY, ROBERT VINCENT 

CHISHOLM, MATTHEW J. ILACQUA; BARBARA J. COOK, 

Cincinnati, OH; CHRISTOPHER J. CLAY, Disabled American 

Veterans, Cold Spring, KY.

MARTIN F. HOCKEY, JR., Commercial Litigation 

Branch, Civil Division, United States Department of 

Justice, Washington, DC, argued for respondent-appellee. 

Also represented by BENJAMIN C. MIZER, ROBERT E.

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2 DICKENS v. MCDONALD

KIRSCHMAN, JR.; DAVID J. BARRANS, BRIAN D. GRIFFIN, 

Office of General Counsel, United States Department of 

Veterans Affairs, Washington, DC.

______________________ 

Before LOURIE, SCHALL, and HUGHES, Circuit Judges.

HUGHES, Circuit Judge. 

Calvin Dickens was an Army veteran who passed 

away while his benefits claim was pending. Ida Dickens, 

his widow, filed a claim for accrued benefits, which the 

Board of Veterans’ Appeals rejected for insufficient evidence of combat status. Mrs. Dickens appealed to the 

United States Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims, 

arguing in part that the Board violated its duty to assist 

her with the development of her claim. The Veterans 

Court held that it could not consider Mrs. Dickens’s dutyto-assist argument because she should have raised this 

allegation before the Board. Because the principles of 

issue exhaustion support the Veterans Court’s determination, we affirm.

I 

In 1998, Mr. Dickens filed a claim for Post-Traumatic 

Stress Disorder (PTSD) caused by in-service events. 

Mr. Dickens stated that he received a Purple Heart and 

Bronze Star in connection with these events. J.A. 19. 

Mr. Dickens’s DD-214 may have been able to verify his 

statements, but the file was never located despite extensive searching. As such, the existence of the awards—and 

thus, evidence of the in-service events—is still uncorroborated today. Mr. Dickens passed away in April 2006, 

while his claim was pending, and Mrs. Dickens filed a 

claim for accrued benefits. 

In October 2011, Mrs. Dickens testified at a Board 

hearing that she and Mr. Dickens had obtained proof of 

the Purple Heart, but she did not know what had hapCase: 15-7022 Document: 57-2 Page: 2 Filed: 03/01/2016
DICKENS v. MCDONALD 3

pened to that proof. In March 2012, the Board denied 

Mrs. Dickens’s claim, finding that there was no evidence 

in the record that Mr. Dickens was involved in combat 

during his military service. In September 2012, the 

parties entered into a joint motion for partial remand at 

the Veterans Court, agreeing that the Board erred in not 

providing an adequate discussion as to Mr. Dickens’s 

combat status. On remand, in March 2013, the Board 

denied the claim, finding again that there was insufficient 

evidence to establish that Mr. Dickens engaged in combat. 

Mrs. Dickens appealed, arguing in part that the VA 

violated its duty to assist her with the development of her 

claim because the Board hearing officer failed to suggest 

that she seek a copy of Mr. Dickens’s service records in 

October 2011. J.A. 4. The Veterans Court rejected this 

argument, noting that if Mrs. Dickens believed that the 

hearing officer committed an error, she should have 

included that issue in the 2012 joint motion for partial 

remand. Id. Because Mrs. Dickens did not raise this 

argument to the Board, the Veterans Court found that the 

Board did not err in this regard. Id. For this and other 

reasons, the Veterans Court affirmed the denial of Mrs. 

Dickens’s claim. Id. at 6. 

Mrs. Dickens appeals. We have jurisdiction pursuant 

to 38 U.S.C. §§ 7292(a), (c). 

II

We may set aside a Veterans Court decision only 

when it is “arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or 

otherwise not in accordance with the law.” 38 U.S.C. 

§ 7292(d)(1)(A). 

“While the Veterans Court may hear legal arguments 

raised for the first time with regard to a claim that is 

properly before the court, it is not compelled to do so in 

every instance.” Maggitt v. West, 202 F.3d 1370, 1377 

(Fed. Cir. 2000) (emphasis added). Because the decision 

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4 DICKENS v. MCDONALD

to invoke the doctrine of issue exhaustion is a discretionary one, its application is largely a matter of application 

of law to fact, a question over which we lack jurisdiction. 

Cook v. Principi, 353 F.3d 937, 939 (Fed. Cir. 2003) (“This 

court is limited by its jurisdictional statute and, absent a 

constitutional issue, may not review challenges to factual 

determinations or challenges to the application of a law or 

regulation to facts.”). But to the extent that the issue 

raised involves solely a legal interpretation, we possess 

jurisdiction. 

In Scott v. McDonald, we outlined the three scenarios 

in which the invocation of issue exhaustion is appropriate: 

(1) the veteran, on an appeal from the Regional Office 

(RO) to the Board, fails to identify errors made by the RO 

either by stating that all issues in the statements of the 

case are being appealed or by specifically identifying the 

issues being appealed; (2) the veteran raises an argument 

for the first time on appeal to the Veterans Court and the 

Veterans Court determines that the VA’s institutional 

interests outweigh the interests of the veteran under the 

balancing test set forth in Maggitt; and (3) the veteran 

raises an argument for the first time on appeal to this 

court and we do not consider it, because we lack jurisdiction to hear arguments that have not been addressed by 

or presented to the Veterans Court. 789 F.3d 1375, 1378–

80 (Fed. Cir. 2015). We affirmed the Veterans Court’s 

invocation of issue exhaustion under the second scenario. 

Id. at 1381.

Here, the Veterans Court decided not to consider Mrs. 

Dickens’s duty-to-assist argument because she failed to 

raise the issue to the Board. J.A. 4. Under the principles 

of issue exhaustion, the Veterans Court’s decision was not 

arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise

not in accordance with the law. The circumstances in this 

case fully support the Veterans Court’s decision. Mrs. 

Dickens raised her argument to the Veterans Court for 

the first time on appeal in 2014. The argument centered 

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DICKENS v. MCDONALD 5

on a 2011 purported breach of the duty-to-assist. Mrs. 

Dickens had the opportunity to raise the argument in at 

least the 2012 joint motion for partial remand and again 

on remand to the Board, but did not do so. And, the 

record indicates that the Dickenses were on notice of the 

need to locate the DD-214 since 1998. See, e.g., id. at 2, 

21, 84–88. 

We have considered Mrs. Dickens’s remaining arguments, and find them unpersuasive. Because the Veterans Court’s decision not to consider Mrs. Dickens’s dutyto-assist argument was not arbitrary, capricious, an abuse 

of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with the law, 

we affirm.

AFFIRMED 

No costs. 

Case: 15-7022 Document: 57-2 Page: 5 Filed: 03/01/2016