Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca13-16-02279/USCOURTS-ca13-16-02279-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
David C. Corson
Appellant
Robert A. McDonald
Appellee

Document Text:

NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.

United States Court of Appeals 

for the Federal Circuit ______________________ 

DAVID C. CORSON,

Claimant-Appellant

v.

ROBERT A. MCDONALD, SECRETARY OF 

VETERANS AFFAIRS,

Respondent-Appellee

______________________ 

2016-2279

______________________ 

Appeal from the United States Court of Appeals for 

Veterans Claims in No. 15-3103, Judge Bruce E. Kasold.

______________________ 

Decided: October 12, 2016 

______________________ 

DAVID C. CORSON, Chloe, WV, pro se.

KARA WESTERCAMP, 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.,

MARTIN F. HOCKEY; BRIAN D. GRIFFIN, CHRISTINA LYNN 

GREGG, Office of General Counsel, United States Department of Veterans Affairs. 

______________________ 

Case: 16-2279 Document: 21-2 Page: 1 Filed: 10/12/2016
2 CORSON v. MCDONALD

Before LOURIE, MAYER, and O’MALLEY, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM. 

David C. Corson (“Corson”) appeals a final judgment 

of the United States Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims 

(“Veterans Court”) rejecting his challenge to a decision of 

the Board of Veterans’ Appeals (“board”) which denied his 

motion to revise an October 2001 board decision on the 

grounds of clear and unmistakable error (“CUE”). See 

Corson v. McDonald, No. 15-3103, 2016 WL 1613980 (Vet. 

App. Apr. 22, 2016) (“Corson II”). For the reasons discussed below, we affirm. 

BACKGROUND

Corson served on active duty in the United States Navy from October 1957 until December 1961. In August 

1959, Corson underwent a procedure to remove a nasopharyngeal angiofibroma. In 1961, after Corson left the 

service, the Department of Veterans Affairs (“VA”) granted him service connection for “angiofibroma of the nasopharynx, non-malignant.” Corson was assigned a thirty 

percent disability rating.

In April 1983, the board denied Corson’s request for 

an increased disability rating. It rejected Corson’s claim 

that his depressive neurosis was secondary to his serviceconnected nasopharyngeal angiofibroma. The board also 

denied Corson’s request for a total disability rating due to 

individual unemployability (“TDIU”), concluding that his 

schedular rating did not meet the regulatory minimum for 

TDIU benefits.

Corson subsequently sought revision of the board’s 

April 1983 decision based upon multiple allegations of 

CUE. In October 2001, the board denied Corson’s request 

for revision, finding no CUE in the April 1983 board 

decision. In June 2008, the board dismissed, with prejudice, Corson’s request to revise the board’s October 2001 

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CORSON v. MCDONALD 3

decision. The board concluded that Corson was improperly attempting to relitigate CUE theories that it had 

considered but rejected in its October 2001 decision.

The Veterans Court affirmed the dismissal of Corson’s 

CUE motion in January 2010. On appeal, this court 

likewise affirmed, explaining that under 38 C.F.R. 

§ 20.1409(c) “once the Board renders a final decision on 

CUE, a claimant is prohibited from challenging that CUE 

determination on the same basis.” Corson v. Shinseki, 

396 F. App’x 688, 689 (Fed. Cir. 2010) (“Corson I”).

In 2011, Corson filed another request to revise the 

board’s October 2001 decision on the basis of CUE. See 

Corson v. Shinseki, No. 13-0573, 2014 WL 1648729, at *2 

(Vet. App. Apr. 25, 2014). In 2014, the Veterans Court 

affirmed the board’s dismissal of that claim with prejudice. See id. at *5–6.

In January 2015, Corson filed a third request for revision of the October 2001 board decision on the basis of 

CUE. See Corson II, 2016 WL 1613980, at *1. The board 

dismissed Corson’s claim with prejudice and the Veterans 

Court, in a single-judge decision, affirmed. The court 

explained that a final board decision on a CUE motion is 

not itself subject to revision on the grounds of CUE. Id. 

In June 2016, the Veterans Court granted Corson’s request for rehearing by a three-judge panel and simultaneously adopted the single-judge decision as the decision of 

the court. See Corson v. McDonald, No. 15-3103, 2016 

WL 3086737, at *1 (Vet. App. June 2, 2016). Corson then 

appealed to this court.

DISCUSSION

This court’s jurisdiction to review decisions of the 

Veterans Court is circumscribed by statute. We have 

jurisdiction to review “the validity of a decision of the 

[Veterans] Court on a rule of law or of any statute or 

regulation . . . or any interpretation thereof (other than a 

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4 CORSON v. MCDONALD

determination as to a factual matter) that was relied on 

by the [Veterans] Court in making the decision.” 38 

U.S.C. § 7292(a). Unless a constitutional issue is presented, however, this court may not review “a challenge to a 

factual determination, or . . . a challenge to a law or 

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

§ 7292(d)(2); see Wanless v. Shinseki, 618 F.3d 1333, 1336 

(Fed. Cir. 2010). We review legal determinations made by 

the Veterans Court de novo. See Cushman v. Shinseki, 

576 F.3d 1290, 1296 (Fed. Cir. 2009).

Under 38 U.S.C. § 7111(a), “[a] decision by the Board 

is subject to revision on the grounds of [CUE].” As we 

have previously made clear, however, a veteran is limited 

to one request for revision, or CUE challenge, for each 

disability claim finally decided by the board. See Hillyard 

v. Shinseki, 695 F.3d 1257, 1259–60 (Fed. Cir. 2012); see 

also 38 C.F.R. § 20.1409(c) (“Once there is a final decision 

on a [CUE] motion . . . relating to a prior Board decision 

on an issue, that prior Board decision on that issue is no 

longer subject to revision on the grounds of [CUE]. Subsequent motions relating to that prior Board decision on 

that issue shall be dismissed with prejudice.”).

In Corson’s previous appeal to this court, we rejected 

his argument that 38 C.F.R. § 20.1409(c) permitted him to 

bring a claim asserting that the board’s October 2001 

decision—which found no CUE in the board’s April 1983 

decision—itself contained CUE. See Corson I, 396 F. 

App’x at 690. Because the issue of whether Corson has 

the right to raise a CUE challenge to the board’s October 

2001 decision was conclusively adjudicated in his previous 

appeal, he is collaterally estopped from relitigating that 

issue in his present appeal. See United States v. Stauffer 

Chem. Co., 464 U.S. 165, 170–71 (1984) (“As commonly 

explained, the doctrine of collateral estoppel can apply to 

preclude relitigation of both issues of law and issues of 

fact if those issues were conclusively determined in a 

prior action.”); Stephen Slesinger, Inc. v. Disney Enters., 

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CORSON v. MCDONALD 5

Inc., 702 F.3d 640, 644 (Fed. Cir. 2012) (“The doctrine of 

issue preclusion, or collateral estoppel, protects the finality of judgments by preclud[ing] relitigation in a second 

suit of issues actually litigated and determined in the first 

suit.” (citations and internal quotation marks omitted)).

Corson also asserts that the VA erred in failing to apply the “benefit of the doubt” rule. Pursuant to 38 U.S.C. 

§ 5107(b), the VA is obliged to give the benefit of the 

doubt to a veteran when there is “an approximate balance 

of positive and negative evidence regarding any issue 

material to the determination of a matter.” The benefit of 

the doubt rule does not apply in the context of CUE 

motions, however, because “CUE is an error where there 

can never be a balance of the evidence situation in which 

there must be benefit of the doubt in favor of the veteran.” 

Disabled Am. Veterans v. Gober, 234 F.3d 682, 704 (Fed. 

Cir. 2000) (citations and internal quotation marks omitted); see also 38 C.F.R. § 20.1403(a) (“Clear and unmistakable error is a very specific and rare kind of error. It is 

the kind of error, of fact or of law, that when called to the 

attention of later reviewers compels the conclusion, to 

which reasonable minds could not differ, that the result 

would have been manifestly different but for the error.”). 

Corson further alleges that the VA violated his right 

to due process when it fraudulently altered certain of his 

medical records. Merely characterizing a claim as constitutional is not enough, however, to “confer upon us jurisdiction that we otherwise lack.” Helfer v. West, 174 F.3d 

1332, 1335 (Fed. Cir. 1999). Corson’s wholly unsupported 

allegation that the VA tampered with his medical records 

is insufficient to raise a non-frivolous constitutional issue. 

See id. (“To the extent that [a veteran] has simply put a 

‘due process’ label on his contention that he should have 

prevailed on his . . . claim, his claim is constitutional in 

name only.”); see also Corson II, 2016 WL 1613980, at *1

(“To the extent Mr. Corson asserts that [the] VA falsified 

or suppressed record evidence in violation of his due 

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6 CORSON v. MCDONALD

process right, he fails to demonstrate record support for 

his assertions.”).

CONCLUSION

We have considered Corson’s remaining arguments 

but do not find them persuasive. Accordingly, the judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for Veterans 

Claims is affirmed.

AFFIRMED

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