Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca13-23-01827/USCOURTS-ca13-23-01827-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Lois Harris
Appellant
Denis McDonough
Appellee

Document Text:

NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.

United States Court of Appeals 

for the Federal Circuit

______________________

LOIS HARRIS,

Claimant-Appellant

v.

DENIS MCDONOUGH, SECRETARY OF 

VETERANS AFFAIRS,

Respondent-Appellee

______________________

2023-1827

______________________

Appeal from the United States Court of Appeals for 

Veterans Claims in No. 21-6359, Judge Michael P. Allen.

______________________

Decided: December 27, 2024

______________________

KENNETH DOJAQUEZ, Carpenter Chartered, Topeka, 

KS, argued for claimant-appellant. 

 MATTHEW JUDE CARHART, Commercial Litigation 

Branch, Civil Division, United States Department of 

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

Also represented by BRIAN M. BOYNTON, ERIC P. BRUSKIN,

PATRICIA M. MCCARTHY; JONATHAN KRISCH, Y. KEN LEE, 

Office of General Counsel, United States Department of 

Veterans Affairs, Washington, DC.

Case: 23-1827 Document: 32 Page: 1 Filed: 12/27/2024
2 HARRIS v. MCDONOUGH

 ______________________

Before DYK, CHEN, and CUNNINGHAM, Circuit Judges.

CHEN, Circuit Judge.

Lois Harris appeals from the decision of the United 

States Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims (Veterans 

Court), which affirmed the denial of an earlier effective 

date for total disability based on individual 

unemployability (TDIU) awarded to Mrs. Harris’s nowdeceased husband, Max Harris. Harris v. McDonough, No. 

21-6359, 2023 WL 355056 (Vet. App. Jan. 23, 2023)

(Decision). Because Mrs. Harris forfeited her arguments, 

we affirm.

BACKGROUND

Mr. Harris served honorably in the United States Air 

Force from March 1961 through April 1970. On April 22, 

2013, Mr. Harris filed with the United States Department 

of Veterans Affairs (VA) a claim for an increased rating for 

his already service-connected knee disability. Dissatisfied 

with the VA regional office’s (RO) decision on that claim, 

Mr. Harris appealed to the Board of Veterans’ Appeals

(Board) in July 2016. While that appeal was pending, 

Mr. Harris obtained counsel to represent him in his pursuit 

of increased compensation. On April 16, 2018, Mr. Harris’s 

counsel submitted an application for TDIU on VA Form 21-

8940, along with a cover letter asserting that Mr. Harris’s

“pursuit of TDIU is not a new claim rather it is part and 

parcel of the pending appeal pursuant to Rice v. Shinseki, 

22 Vet. App. 447 (2009).” J.A. 104–07 (cleaned up). The 

application asserted that Mr. Harris was unemployable in 

part due to his service-connected knee disability.

In October 2018, the Board remanded to the RO the 

issue of entitlement to TDIU. The RO granted Mr. Harris 

entitlement to TDIU, effective April 16, 2018—the date 

that Mr. Harris submitted his TDIU application. Although

Case: 23-1827 Document: 32 Page: 2 Filed: 12/27/2024
HARRIS v. MCDONOUGH 3

Mr. Harris continued to argue that his request for TDIU 

was submitted not as a new claim but rather as part of his 

then-pending claim for increased compensation and should 

be treated as having been filed in 2013, the Board 

nevertheless denied him an earlier effective date for TDIU. 

The Board applied 38 C.F.R. § 3.400(o), which provides that

the effective date for an award of increased compensation 

is the later of the “date of receipt of claim or date 

entitlement arose,” save for an exception under 

§ 3.400(o)(2) not relevant to this appeal. Notwithstanding 

that Mr. Harris had not filed his application for TDIU until 

April 16, 2018, the Board evaluated whether the record 

before the VA contained “cogent evidence of 

unemployability” before that date, such that an earlier date 

of receipt of claim for TDIU could be inferred. J.A. 174–79. 

Finding that no such evidence had been filed, and that the 

exception provided by § 3.400(o)(2) was inapplicable, the 

Board maintained Mr. Harris’s April 16, 2018 effective date 

for TDIU. See id.

Mr. Harris appealed to the Veterans Court and, 

following his passing, Mrs. Harris was substituted as the 

appellant. Represented by new counsel, Mrs. Harris 

abandoned the argument previously made that the request 

for TDIU was filed as part and parcel of Mr. Harris’s

pending claim for increased compensation. She instead 

argued to the Veterans Court that “the Board failed to 

explain why [the] evidence was not cogent evidence of 

unemployability sufficient to raise the question of TDIU.” 

J.A. 195–96; see also id. at 190–97. Taking up the only 

issue presented to it, the Veterans Court affirmed because 

the Board “adequately explained why it concluded that the 

evidence did not satisfy the ‘cogent evidence of

unemployability’ standard” and its factual findings were 

“not clearly wrong.” Decision, 2023 WL 355056, at *1–2.

Mrs. Harris appeals. We have jurisdiction under 38 

U.S.C. § 7292.

Case: 23-1827 Document: 32 Page: 3 Filed: 12/27/2024
4 HARRIS v. MCDONOUGH

DISCUSSION

Mrs. Harris argues that the Veterans Court 

erroneously required cogent evidence of unemployability to 

demonstrate an implicit date of claim for TDIU earlier than 

the date on which Mr. Harris filed his formal TDIU

application. Instead, she says, the Veterans Court should 

have determined whether the express request for TDIU

made in 2018 was raised as part and parcel of Mr. Harris’s

pending claim for a higher rating and should be treated as 

having been filed in 2013. See, e.g., Appellant’s Br. 11–12.

Mrs. Harris did not argue to the Veterans Court that 

Mr. Harris’s request for TDIU was raised as part and 

parcel of his already pending claim, and the Veterans Court 

did not pass on that issue. The general rule is that we do

not consider issues not decided by or raised to the Veterans 

Court. Forshey v. Principi, 284 F.3d 1335, 1355 (Fed. Cir. 

2002) (en banc), superseded on other grounds by statute, 

Veterans Benefits Act of 2002, Pub. L. No. 107-330, 

§ 402(a), 116 Stat. 2820, 2832; see, e.g., Boggs v. West, 188

F.3d 1335, 1337–38 (Fed. Cir. 1999) (affirming because 

appellant did not raise before the Veterans Court the only 

issue appealed to us). The government argues that we 

should affirm on that basis. See Appellee’s Br. 14–17.

Mrs. Harris does not dispute that she did not raise this 

issue to the Veterans Court, and her reply brief presents no 

argument explaining why we should nonetheless consider

it in the first instance. See Appellant’s Reply Br. 2–5.1 At 

oral argument, Mrs. Harris offered two reasons why we 

should consider the issue raised by her appeal. Oral Arg. 

1 Mrs. Harris misunderstands the government as 

arguing that we lack jurisdiction to hear her appeal. The 

government did not challenge jurisdiction; it argued that

we should not consider Mrs. Harris’s arguments on 

forfeiture grounds. See, e.g., Appellee’s Br. 10, 14.

Case: 23-1827 Document: 32 Page: 4 Filed: 12/27/2024
HARRIS v. MCDONOUGH 5

at 5:32–40 (available at 

https://oralarguments.cafc.uscourts.gov/default.aspx?fl=23

-1827_12022024.mp3). Arguments raised for the first time 

during oral argument, like those not raised to the tribunal 

under review, are forfeited. See, e.g., SEKRI, Inc. v. United 

States, 34 F.4th 1063, 1071 n.9 (Fed. Cir. 2022). 

Regardless, these arguments are not persuasive.

First, Mrs. Harris pointed out that the argument she 

presented to us, but not to the Veterans Court, was made 

to the Board. Oral Arg. at 5:40–6:23. But she cites no 

authority—and we are aware of none—supporting that an 

argument presented to the Board and abandoned in favor 

of another presented to the Veterans Court preserves the 

former for review in this court. We decline to so hold. 

Second, Mrs. Harris argued that the issue was not forfeited 

because the Veterans Court is always required to apply the 

correct law, and she contends it did not do so. Oral Arg. at 

6:23–7:14. Without addressing the merits of whether a 

request for TDIU filed during the pendency of an increased 

rating claim may relate back to the date of that claim, we 

note that Mrs. Harris not only abandoned that argument 

before the Veterans Court, but also acquiesced in the 

cogent evidence of unemployability standard used by the 

Board. “We have held that an appellant who ‘urged upon 

the Veterans Court’ a position forfeits any argument on 

appeal that the Veterans Court ‘committed reversible error’

when the court applied that position.” Kennedy v. 

McDonough, 33 F.4th 1339, 1342 (Fed. Cir. 2022) (citation 

omitted); see also Forshey, 284 F.3d at 1358. By arguing 

only whether the record before the VA contained cogent 

evidence of unemployability, Mrs. Harris urged upon the 

Veterans Court the position that such evidence was 

required in order for Mr. Harris to receive an earlier 

effective date for TDIU, and she therefore forfeited her 

argument to the contrary now presented to us. See, e.g., 

Kennedy, 33 F.4th at 1342–43.

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6 HARRIS v. MCDONOUGH

We see no reason to excuse Mrs. Harris’s forfeiture and 

consider her arguments in the first instance. Accordingly, 

we affirm the decision of the Veterans Court.

AFFIRMED

COSTS

No costs.

Case: 23-1827 Document: 32 Page: 6 Filed: 12/27/2024