Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca13-15-07113/USCOURTS-ca13-15-07113-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
William L. Apgar
Appellant
Robert A. McDonald
Appellee

Document Text:

NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.

United States Court of Appeals 

for the Federal Circuit ______________________ 

WILLIAM L. APGAR,

Claimant-Appellant

v.

ROBERT A. MCDONALD, SECRETARY OF 

VETERANS AFFAIRS,

Respondent-Appellee

______________________ 

2015-7113

______________________ 

Appeal from the United States Court of Appeals for 

Veterans Claims in No. 14-2212, Chief Judge Bruce E. 

Kasold.

______________________ 

Decided: February 8, 2016

______________________ 

 WILLIAM L. APGAR, Spring Hill, FL, pro se.

 JEFFREY LOWRY, Commercial Litigation Branch, Civil 

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

PATRICIA M. MCCARTHY, ROBERT E. KIRSCHMAN, JR.,

BENJAMIN C. MIZER; Y. KEN LEE, BRYAN THOMPSON, Office 

of General Counsel, United States Department of Veterans Affairs, Washington, DC.

Case: 15-7113 Document: 24-2 Page: 1 Filed: 02/08/2016
2 APGAR v. MCDONALD

______________________ 

Before CHEN, CLEVENGER, and BRYSON, Circuit 

Judges.

PER CURIAM. 

William L. Apgar seeks review of the decision of the 

Court of Veterans Claims (Veterans Court) affirming the 

decision of the Board of Veterans’ Appeals (Board). For 

the reasons stated below, we dismiss Mr. Apgar’s appeal 

for lack of jurisdiction.

BACKGROUND

Mr. Apgar served in the U.S. Navy from November 21,

1988, to January 18, 1990. On March, 10, 2010, Mr. 

Apgar submitted an application for veterans’ disability 

benefits. The Department of Veterans’ Affairs (VA) 

notified Mr. Apgar that his application was incomplete 

and requested that Mr. Apgar identify his claimed disability. Mr. Apgar responded to the VA on June 13, 2011, and 

ultimately explained that he was seeking disability benefits for a service-connected psychiatric disability. The VA 

found that Mr. Apgar established entitlement to service 

connection and assigned a 100 percent disability rating

effective October 30, 2012.

Mr. Apgar appealed the assigned effective date, and 

the Board determined Mr. Apgar’s claim was effective 

back to June 13, 2011. The Board denied Mr. Apgar’s 

request to move that effective date back to January 1990, 

explaining that 38 U.S.C. § 5110 and 38 C.F.R. § 3.400 

direct that the effective date will be the date of the receipt 

of the original claim or the date entitlement arose, whichever is later. 

Mr. Apgar appealed to the Veterans Court, arguing 

that he tried to file a claim for benefits after exiting 

service in 1990, but was repeatedly told that he was not

entitled to any benefits. The Veterans Court reviewed 

Case: 15-7113 Document: 24-2 Page: 2 Filed: 02/08/2016
APGAR v. MCDONALD 3

Mr. Apgar’s evidence and determined that the evidence 

did not demonstrate any confusion or misleading advice 

that warranted an equitable remedy of an earlier effective 

date. The Veterans Court affirmed the Board’s decision.

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 

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)).

Mr. Apgar asserts that the Veterans Court erred by 

setting his effective date for disability benefits to the date 

of his benefits application rather than to the date he was 

discharged from the Navy, because medical evidence 

shows that he was subjected to serious trauma during his

active service. Appellant Br. at 3. Mr. Apgar also alleges 

that the VA psychiatrist misdiagnosed him with a personality disorder on the day he was discharged. Id. 

The relevant statute, 38 U.S.C. § 5110, sets the “effective date of an award based on an original claim” to be 

“not [] earlier than the date of receipt of application” of 

that claim, with limited exceptions not applicable to this 

case. Mr. Apgar does not challenge the validity of that 

statute or the validity of the implementing regulation, 38 

C.F.R. § 3.400. Instead, Mr. Apgar asks that we assign

his award an earlier effective date on the ground that his 

submitted medical evidence supports his view that his 

disability arose during service, and, under the law, he 

should be entitled to benefits from the time of his disCase: 15-7113 Document: 24-2 Page: 3 Filed: 02/08/2016
4 APGAR v. MCDONALD

charge date. Appellant Br. at 3. We cannot consider Mr. 

Apgar’s argument because this Court was not given

jurisdiction to determine whether the law was correctly 

applied to Mr. Apgar’s facts. See 38 U.S.C. § 7292(d)(2). 

We also cannot consider Mr. Apgar’s allegation that it is 

his “Constitutional Right to have a Disability Rating on 

the Date of Discharge” because this allegation is constitutional in name only, and he is really challenging how the 

law should be applied to his facts. See Helfer v. West, 174 

F.3d 1332, 1335 (Fed. Cir. 1999).

We have considered Mr. Apgar’s remaining arguments and his submission of supplemental information, 

and find nothing that gives this Court jurisdiction over 

Mr. Apgar’s appeal. We therefore must dismiss this

appeal for lack of jurisdiction.

DISMISSED

COSTS

No Costs.

Case: 15-7113 Document: 24-2 Page: 4 Filed: 02/08/2016