Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca13-16-01451/USCOURTS-ca13-16-01451-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Willie Clay
Appellant
Robert A. McDonald
Appellee

Document Text:

NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.

United States Court of Appeals 

for the Federal Circuit ______________________ 

WILLIE CLAY,

Claimant-Appellant

v.

ROBERT A. MCDONALD, SECRETARY OF 

VETERANS AFFAIRS,

Respondent-Appellee

______________________ 

2016-1451

______________________ 

Appeal from the United States Court of Appeals for 

Veterans Claims in No. 14-4356, Chief Judge Bruce E. 

Kasold.

______________________ 

Decided: May 9, 2016

______________________ 

 WILLIE CLAY, Starkville, MS, pro se.

 VITO SALVATORE SOLITRO, Commercial Litigation 

Branch, Civil Division, United States Department of 

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

represented by MARTIN F. HOCKEY, JR., ROBERT E.

KIRSCHMAN, JR., BENJAMIN C. MIZER; BRIAN D. GRIFFIN,

DEREK SCADDEN, Office of General Counsel, United States 

Department of Veterans Affairs.

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2 CLAY v. MCDONALD

______________________ 

Before O’MALLEY, CHEN, and STOLL, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM. 

Appellant Willie Clay seeks review of the September 

16, 2015 decision of the Court of Appeals for Veterans 

Claims (“Veterans Court”) affirming the December 5, 

2014 decision of the Board of Veterans’ Appeals (“Board”). 

Clay v. McDonald, No. 14-4356, 2015 U.S. App. Vet. 

Claims LEXIS 1258 (Vet. App. Sept. 16, 2015). For the 

reasons below, we dismiss Mr. Clay’s appeal for lack of 

jurisdiction.

BACKGROUND

Mr. Clay served on active duty from May 1973 to 

January 1975. Joint Appendix (“JA”) 7. Mr. Clay initially 

submitted a claim for a permanent and total disability 

rating for pension purposes based on his paranoid schizophrenia. The Board denied Mr. Clay’s initial claim. JA 8

(decision dated December 23, 1986). Mr. Clay took no 

further action on this claim. Subsequently, on February 

16, 1989, Mr. Clay submitted a claim for pension benefits

to the Jackson, Mississippi, Regional Office (“RO”). The 

Board, and then the Veterans Court, proceeded to adjudicate Mr. Clay’s February 16, 1989 claim. After a complicated series of remands from the Veterans Court for 

redetermination of Mr. Clay’s effective date of non-service 

connected pension benefits, the Board ultimately awarded 

Mr. Clay an effective date of September 12, 1988. JA 10

(Board decision dated December 5, 2014). Mr. Clay 

appealed the Board’s assignment of this effective date, 

“assert[ing] that (1) he has not yet received the reimbursement, and (2) an earlier effective date is warranted 

for his pension benefits.” Clay, 2015 U.S. App. Vet. 

Claims LEXIS 1258, *3. The Veterans Court affirmed, 

holding that “Mr. Clay fail[ed] to demonstrate that the 

Board clearly erred in its effective-date assignment.” Id. 

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CLAY v. MCDONALD 3

The Veterans Court further held that, to the extent 

Mr. Clay sought to base his effective-date assignment on 

allegations of being totally and permanently disabled as 

of 1984 or 1985, “the earlier-effective-date provision of 

§ 3.400(b)(1)(ii)(B) is unavailable if a veteran becomes 

permanently and totally disabled over one year prior to 

the claim.”1 Id. at *2-3 (citing Mindenhall v. Brown, 7 

Vet. App. 271, 275 (1994)). 

Mr. Clay now appeals the December 5, 2014 judgment 

of the Veterans Court.

DISCUSSION

Our jurisdiction to review decisions of the Veterans 

Court is limited. We have jurisdiction “to review and 

decide any challenge to the validity of any statute or 

regulation or any interpretation thereof . . . and to interpret constitutional and statutory provisions, to the extent 

presented and necessary to a decision.” Wanless v. 

Shinseki, 618 F.3d 1333, 1336 (Fed. Cir. 2010) (citing 38 

 

1 38 C.F.R. § 3.400(b)(1)(ii)(B) provides as follows:

“If, within one year from the date on which the 

veteran became permanently and totally disabled, 

the veteran files a claim for a retroactive award 

and establishes that a physical or mental disability, which was not the result of the veteran’s own 

willful misconduct, was so incapacitating that it 

prevented him or her from filing a disability pension claim for at least the first 30 days immediately following the date on which the veteran became 

permanently and totally disabled, the disability 

pension award may be effective from the date of 

receipt of claim or the date on which the veteran 

became permanently and totally disabled, whichever is to the advantage of the veteran.”

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4 CLAY v. MCDONALD

U.S.C. § 7292(c)). “Absent a constitutional issue, however, we lack the jurisdiction to ‘review (A) a challenge to a 

factual determination, or (B) a challenge to a law or 

regulation as applied to the facts of a particular case.’” 

Id. (quoting 38 U.S.C. § 7292(d)(2)).

Here, Mr. Clay contests the Board’s assignment of an 

effective date of September 12, 1988 for his non-service 

connected pension benefits. Specifically, Mr. Clay argues 

that the effective date should be February 18, 1988 because he was allegedly permanently disabled as of 1984 or 

1985. Appellant Br. at 1-2.

In response, the government notes that we held in 

Butler v. Shinseki, 603 F.3d 922, 926 (Fed. Cir. 2010), 

that the effective date of a claim is generally a question of 

fact that is beyond our jurisdiction to review. Appellee 

Br. at 10-11. We agree. “[T]he factual findings of when a 

disability was claimed or service connection established 

are not subject to our review.” See Butler, 603 F.3d at

926. Because Mr. Clay only challenges the effective date 

of his pension benefits, he merely raises an issue of fact. 

Such a question is outside the scope of our review. See 38 

U.S.C. § 7292(c), (d)(2). Therefore, we must dismiss Mr. 

Clay’s appeal for lack of jurisdiction.

CONCLUSION

Mr. Clay appeals the Veterans Court’s factual findings in his case, which is a matter over which we lack 

jurisdiction. See Wanless, 618 F.3d at 1336. Accordingly, 

we dismiss Mr. Clay’s appeal.

DISMISSED

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