Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca13-23-01423/USCOURTS-ca13-23-01423-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Denis McDonough
Appellee
James J. Perciavalle
Appellant

Document Text:

NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.

United States Court of Appeals 

for the Federal Circuit

______________________

JAMES J. PERCIAVALLE,

Claimant-Appellant

v.

DENIS MCDONOUGH, SECRETARY OF 

VETERANS AFFAIRS,

Respondent-Appellee

______________________

2023-1423

______________________

Appeal from the United States Court of Appeals for 

Veterans Claims in No. 20-8597, Judge Amanda L. 

Meredith.

______________________

Decided: December 19, 2024

______________________

KENNETH M. CARPENTER, Law Offices of Carpenter 

Chartered, Topeka, KS, for claimant-appellant. 

 ROBERT R. KIEPURA, Commercial Litigation Branch, 

Civil Division, United States Department of Justice, 

Washington, DC, for respondent-appellee. Also 

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

PATRICIA M. MCCARTHY; MEGHAN ALPHONSO, CHRISTA A.

Case: 23-1423 Document: 37 Page: 1 Filed: 12/19/2024
2 PERCIAVALLE v. MCDONOUGH

SHRIBER, Office of General Counsel, United States 

Department of Veterans Affairs. Washington, DC.

 ______________________

Before DYK, CHEN, and STOLL, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM.

James J. Perciavalle appeals the decision of the United 

States Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims (“Veterans 

Court”) remanding his action to the Board of Veterans’ 

Appeals (“the Board”). Because the Veterans Court’s nonfinal remand order does not fall within the limited class of 

orders appropriate for appellate review under Williams 

v. Principi, 275 F.3d 1361 (Fed. Cir. 2002), we dismiss.

BACKGROUND

Mr. Perciavalle represented veteran John Abram while 

Mr. Abram pursued an earlier effective date for already 

service-connected benefits from the United States 

Department of Veterans Affairs (“VA”). The VA initially 

granted Mr. Abram an earlier effective date but, in a 

January 2019 decision, it notified Mr. Perciavalle that it 

would not withhold his fees from the amount of past-due 

benefits awarded because he had not filed the requisite

direct-pay fee agreement with the agency of original 

jurisdiction within 30 days of its execution. The following 

month, Mr. Perciavalle filed a notice of disagreement and

subsequently perfected an appeal to the Board. He also 

submitted a signed fee agreement dated April 2020. In 

September 2020, the Board dismissed as moot 

Mr. Perciavalle’s appeal of entitlement to agent fees based 

on past-due benefits granted. Citing a June 2020 decision 

severing Mr. Abram’s award of an earlier effective date and 

reestablishing the original effective date (a decision that 

Mr. Abram appealed), the Board reasoned that “[a]s there 

was no award of past-due benefits on which agent fees 

could be based, the appeal is moot.” J.A. 132.

Case: 23-1423 Document: 37 Page: 2 Filed: 12/19/2024
PERCIAVALLE v. MCDONOUGH 3

Mr. Perciavalle appealed the Board’s dismissal of his 

fee claim to the Veterans Court, arguing “the Board’s 

decision to dismiss the appeal was void ab initio and should 

be reversed.” Perciavalle v. McDonough, No. 20-8597, 

2022 WL 2093051, at *2 (Vet. App. June 10, 2022). He

asserted that: (1) the June 2020 decision was unlawful; 

and (2) even if that decision was valid, the Board should 

defer addressing his appeal on fees until after the appeal 

on the severing of Mr. Abram’s earlier effective date is final. 

At the Veterans Court, the Secretary “conced[ed] that 

remand [rather than affirmance] of the agent fee claim on 

appeal is warranted because it is inextricably intertwined 

with [Mr. Abram’s] appeal.” Id.

The Veterans Court determined that “the Board 

provided inadequate reasons or bases” for its decision, 

explaining that the Board failed to (1) “acknowledge, as 

conceded by the parties, that [Mr. Abram’s] appeal” of the 

June 2020 decision was still pending; (2) explain why the 

June 2020 “decision would be controlling for purposes of 

determining whether ‘past-due benefits [were] awarded on 

the basis of the claim’”; and (3) consider the VA’s statement 

that it “would not seek recoupment of any overpayment.” 

Id. at *3 (alteration original, citation omitted). The 

Veterans Court explained that because of “these 

deficiencies in the Board’s reasons or bases, the Court’s 

review of the Board’s finding that there was no award of 

past-due benefits, and its decision to dismiss based on that 

finding, is frustrated.” Id. Therefore, the Veterans Court 

“vacate[d] the Board decision and remand[ed] the matter 

for further proceedings.” Id.

Mr. Perciavalle appeals, asserting that “[t]he Veterans 

Court decision [he] appealed from is final.” Appellant’s 

Br. 1.

DISCUSSION

“[W]e have generally declined to review non-final 

orders of the Veterans Court, and we have held that 

Case: 23-1423 Document: 37 Page: 3 Filed: 12/19/2024
4 PERCIAVALLE v. MCDONOUGH

remand orders from the Veterans Court ordinarily are not 

appealable because they are not final.” Adams v. Principi, 

256 F.3d 1318, 1320 (Fed. Cir. 2001). Our decision in 

Williams provides a limited exception to this rule. We will 

depart from the strict rule of finality when the appellant

establishes that:

(1) there must have been a clear and final decision 

of a legal issue that

(a) is separate from the remand 

proceedings,

(b) will directly govern the remand 

proceedings or,

(c) if reversed by this court, would render 

the remand proceedings unnecessary;

(2) the resolution of the legal issues must adversely 

affect the party seeking review; and,

(3) there must be a substantial risk that the 

decision would not survive a remand, i.e., that the 

remand proceeding may moot the issue.

Williams, 275 F.3d at 1364 (footnotes omitted). The 

appellant must satisfy all three conditions for the exception 

to apply. See id.

The Veterans Court’s remand decision here does not 

satisfy the first Williams condition because there is no 

clear and final decision of a legal issue when, as here, the 

Veterans Court merely determines that the Board provided 

inadequate reasons or bases for its actions. Id. at 1365 

(“[T]here has been no clear and final decision on a legal 

issue; the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims has merely 

remanded for further consideration of the issues by the 

Board as a predicate to further review of those issues by 

the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims.”); Ebel 

v. Shinseki, 673 F.3d 1337, 1342 (Fed. Cir. 2012) (holding 

there is no clear and final decision on a legal issue where 

Case: 23-1423 Document: 37 Page: 4 Filed: 12/19/2024
PERCIAVALLE v. MCDONOUGH 5

the “the Veterans Court evaluated the Board’s factual 

determinations and remanded because the ‘Board did not 

adequately consider the evidence of record’ such that the 

Board’s ‘statements of reasons and bases [were] inadequate 

to facilitate review’” (alteration in original, citation 

omitted)). Nevertheless, Mr. Perciavalle argues that the

Veterans Court’s remand decision is “a clear and final 

decision of a legal issue” because “the Veterans Court did 

not resolve” the question of law he raised—whether the 

Board’s decision “was void ab initio.” Appellant’s Br. 6–7. 

Quoting Caesar v. West, 195 F.3d 1373, 1375 (Fed. Cir. 

1999) (per curiam), he contends “that a decision is ‘clear’ 

and ‘final’ despite nominally being a remand where the 

issue raised by the appellant ‘was obviously not resolved by 

the remand decision.’” Appellant’s Br. 7. But Caesar does 

not support Mr. Perciavalle’s argument. In Caesar, we 

concluded that “[b]ecause Caesar has not appealed from a 

final judgment, we lack jurisdiction over the case, and 

therefore must dismiss his appeal.” 195 F.3d at 1375. 

Although we acknowledged that the remand decision failed 

to resolve the issue raised on appeal, we explained that the 

issue was “plainly deeply intertwined with Caesar’s 

continuing effort to gain compensation for his wartime 

injuries” and that “nothing in the Court of Appeals for 

Veterans Claims’ decision prevents Caesar from presenting 

his . . . arguments at some later stage of the dispute, if 

necessary.” Id. Caesar simply does not support 

Mr. Perciavalle’s argument that an issue not resolved by a

remand decision satisfies the clear and final decision of a 

legal issue requirement.

For this court to have jurisdiction over a non-final 

remand order, Mr. Perciavalle must meet each of the 

Williams conditions. Because Mr. Perciavalle has not met 

the first Williams condition, we dismiss his appeal for lack 

of jurisdiction.

Case: 23-1423 Document: 37 Page: 5 Filed: 12/19/2024
6 PERCIAVALLE v. MCDONOUGH

CONCLUSION

We have considered Mr. Perciavalle’s remaining 

arguments and do not find them persuasive. For the 

foregoing reasons, this appeal is dismissed.

DISMISSED

COSTS

No costs.

Case: 23-1423 Document: 37 Page: 6 Filed: 12/19/2024