Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca13-15-07097/USCOURTS-ca13-15-07097-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Robert A. McDonald
Appellee
John J. Titone
Appellant

Document Text:

NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.

United States Court of Appeals 

for the Federal Circuit ______________________ 

JOHN J. TITONE,

Claimant-Appellant

v.

ROBERT A. MCDONALD, SECRETARY OF 

VETERANS AFFAIRS,

Respondent-Appellee

______________________ 

2015-7097

______________________ 

Appeal from the United States Court of Appeals for 

Veterans Claims in No. 14-1746, Judge Margaret C. 

Bartley.

______________________ 

Decided: February 9, 2016

______________________ 

JOHN J. TITONE, Lindenhurst, NY, pro se.

SEAN SIEKKINEN, Commercial Litigation Branch, Civil 

Division, United States Department of Justice, Washington, DC, for respondent-appellee. Also represented by 

BENJAMIN C. MIZER, ROBERT E. KIRSCHMAN, JR.,

ELIZABETH HOSFORD; BRIAN D. GRIFFIN, JONATHAN 

KRISCH, MARTIN JAMES SENDEK, Office of General CounCase: 15-7097 Document: 16-2 Page: 1 Filed: 02/09/2016
2 TITONE v. MCDONALD

sel, United States Department of Veterans Affairs, Washington, DC. 

______________________ 

Before MOORE, TARANTO, and HUGHES, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM. 

John J. Titone served in the U.S. Army from 1977 to 

1984. In 2007, he applied for veterans’ benefits, claiming

that he had a disability relating to a splenectomy connected to his Army service. A Regional Office of the 

Department of Veterans Affairs assigned him a disability 

rating of 20% as of November 23, 2007. Mr. Titone challenged the 2007 effective date before the Board of Veterans’ Appeals, arguing that he was entitled to receive 

benefits back to 1984, when he left active military service. 

The Board rejected his argument, and the United States 

Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims affirmed. Mr. 

Titone presents the same argument to us. We affirm.

It is undisputed that Mr. Titone did not file his claim 

for disability benefits until 2007. Mr. Titone’s argument—to the Board, to the Veterans Court, and to us—is 

that his benefit entitlement should have begun upon his 

discharge from active service in May 1984, not from the 

2007 filing date of his claim for disability benefits. The 

reason, he contends, is that the Army, when he was 

discharged from service, did not inform him of his entitlement to benefits and not until 2007 did he know of his 

eligibility. The Board and the Veterans Court both concluded that, under the governing statutory and regulatory 

provisions, 38 U.S.C. §§ 5101, 5110; 38 C.F.R. § 3.400, the 

claim-filing date was the earliest permissible effective 

date for benefits. 

Congress has narrowly defined the scope of our jurisdiction over appeals from the Veterans Court. Because 

we are not presented with a constitutional question, our 

jurisdiction is limited to “decid[ing] any challenge to the 

Case: 15-7097 Document: 16-2 Page: 2 Filed: 02/09/2016
TITONE v. MCDONALD 3

validity of any statute or regulation or any interpretation 

thereof,” 38 U.S.C. § 7292(c), and does not embrace challenges to “a factual determination” or to “a law or regulation as applied to the facts of a particular case,” id.

§ 7292(d)(2). Accordingly, our jurisdiction here is restricted to considering the contention, which we may construe 

Mr. Titone’s appeal to us as presenting, that the statutes 

and regulations must be interpreted to permit an effective 

date well before the claim-filing date when the military 

did not give notice of eligibility for benefits to a soldier 

upon discharge or later.

That contention, however, lacks merit. 38 U.S.C. 

§ 5101(a)(1) requires the filing of a claim before a veteran 

will receive benefits, and § 5110(a) provides that “[u]nless 

specifically provided otherwise in this chapter, the effective date of an award based on an original claim . . . of 

compensation . . . shall be fixed in accordance with the 

facts found, but shall not be earlier than the date of receipt 

of application therefor.” Id. § 5110(a) (emphasis added). 

The relevant implementing regulation states that unless 

the VA receives a claim within one year after a veteran’s 

separation from service, the effective date for that veteran’s receiving disability compensation is the “date of 

receipt of claim, or date entitlement arose, whichever is 

later.” 38 C.F.R. § 3.400(b)(2)(i) (emphasis added). 

Those provisions leave no room for an effective date 

before the claim-filing date just because Mr. Titone was 

not told that he had the option to file a claim for such 

benefits when he left active service. And we have previously rejected similar equitable arguments. See Andrews 

v. Principi, 351 F.3d 1134, 1137–38 (Fed. Cir. 2003) 

(concluding that the government’s failure to notify under 

38 U.S.C. § 7722(b), (c)(1) is not a basis for tolling 

§ 5110(b)(1) and that equitable tolling does not apply to 

§ 5110(b)(1)); Rodriguez v. West, 189 F.3d 1351, 1354–55 

(Fed. Cir. 1999) (determining that 38 U.S.C. §§ 5102, 

7722(d) do not “justif[y] ignoring the unequivocal comCase: 15-7097 Document: 16-2 Page: 3 Filed: 02/09/2016
4 TITONE v. MCDONALD

mand in 38 U.S.C. § 5110(a)”); McCay v. Brown, 106 F.3d 

1577, 1582 (Fed. Cir. 1997) (holding that equitable tolling 

does not apply to § 5110(g)). For those reasons, we must 

reject Mr. Titone’s contention and affirm the judgment of 

the Veterans Court.

No costs.

AFFIRMED

Case: 15-7097 Document: 16-2 Page: 4 Filed: 02/09/2016