United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

Chicago, Illinois 60604

Submitted January 23, 2014*

Decided January 27, 2014

Before

JOEL M. FLAUM, Circuit Judge

DANIEL A. MANION, Circuit Judge

MICHAEL S. KANNE, Circuit Judge

No. 12-3491

THOMAS KARMATZIS,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

MICHAEL HAMILTON, et al.,

Defendants-Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District

Court for the Central District of Illinois.

No. 11-CV-2222

Michael P. McCuskey, 

Judge.

O R D E R

Thomas Karmatzis, an army veteran, appeals the dismissal of his suit against the

U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (“VA”) and eleven VA employees, alleging that

they violated his constitutional rights by discontinuing his health-care benefits and

denying him an opportunity to appeal. The district judge dismissed the complaint for

lack of subject-matter jurisdiction and denied Karmatzis’s motion to amend. We affirm. 

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION

To be cited only in accordance with

 Fed. R. App. P. 32.1

After examining the parties’ briefs and the record, we have concluded that oral *

argument is unnecessary. Thus, the appeal is submitted on the briefs and the record.

See FED. R. APP. P. 34(a)(2)(C).
No. 12-3491 Page 2

In 2009 Karmatzis underwent spinal surgery at a VA hospital and suffered

complications that required removal of a portion of his small intestine and resectioning

of his colon. He filed a complaint with the VA a year later seeking compensatory

benefits because, he asserted, his surgical complications were caused by the VA’s

negligence. While his claim was pending, the VA discontinued his health-care benefits

because he had not served the requisite time in active duty. The VA later also denied his

claim for compensatory benefits, a denial that Karmatzis administratively appealed, but

that appeal is not part of this case.

Karmatzis sued in federal court, alleging that the VA discontinued his

health-care benefits in retaliation for filing a claim for compensation, and denied him an

opportunity to appeal the discontinuation. The district judge, on the magistrate judge’s

recommendation, terminated the case, dismissing the complaint for lack of

subject-matter jurisdiction. Challenges to individual veteran’s benefits decisions, the

district judge explained, are barred under the Veteran’s Judicial Review Act, see 38

U.S.C. § 511(a).

A week later Karmatzis moved to amend his complaint to clarify that the

defendants violated his due-process rights when a VA employee told him that no

appeal process was available to him to challenge the discontinuation of benefits. The

magistrate judge, apparently unaware that he lacked the parties’ consent to rule on a

dispositive matter, see 28 U.S.C. § 636(c), denied the motion. Echoing the district judge’s

earlier decision, the magistrate judge concluded that the court lacked subject-matter

jurisdiction to review Karmatzis’s motion to amend because that motion, like his

original complaint, raised not a facial constitutional challenge, but rather a challenge

only to the VA’s conduct in his particular case, and he would have to pursue his

challenge through the VA’s appeals process. 

Karmatzis appealed, and we remanded the case because of the § 636(c) matter

and urged the district judge to review the magistrate judge’s ruling and resolve the

postjudgment motion to amend the complaint. The district judge in turn accepted the

magistrate judge’s rationale and denied the motion. 

On appeal Kartmatzis challenges the ruling that the district court lacked

subject-matter jurisdiction under the VJRA over his claims. He asserts that his complaint

raised a facial constitutional challenge by contesting the discontinuation of his benefits

and the unavailability of an appeals process.
No. 12-3491 Page 3

The VJRA establishes the exclusive review procedure through which veterans

may challenge the VA’s adjudication of their benefits claims. See 38 U.S.C. § 511(a). The

circuits unanimously agree that the VJRA divests the federal courts of jurisdiction to

review lawsuits challenging individual veteran’s benefits decisions. See id; Veterans for

Common Sense v. Shinseki, 678 F.3d 1013, 1025 (9th Cir. 2012); Price v. United States, 228

F.3d 420, 421 (D.C. Cir. 2000); Beamon v. Brown, 125 F.3d 965, 970–71 (6th Cir. 1997);

Weaver v. United States, 98 F.3d 518, 519–20 (10th Cir. 1996); Hall v. U.S. Dep’t of Veterans’

Affairs, 85 F.3d 532, 534 (11th Cir. 1996); Zuspann v. Brown, 60 F.3d 1156, 1158–59 (5th

Cir. 1995); Sugrue v. Derwinski, 26 F.3d 8, 11 (2d Cir. 1994); Hicks v. Veterans Admin., 961

F.2d 1367, 1369–70 (8th Cir. 1992). A veteran may not circumvent these jurisdictional

limitations by cloaking a benefits claim in constitutional terms. See Veterans for Common

Sense, 678 F.3d at 1023 (collecting cases).

The district judge here properly concluded that Karmatzis did not make a facial

constitutional attack, but instead merely was “challenging the VA’s conduct in his

particular case.” The essence of Karmatzis’s complaint is that the VA erroneously

discontinued his health-care benefits and should have allowed him an opportunity to

appeal the discontinuation. Based on the VA’s allegedly erroneous actions, he seeks

damages for the “neglect[] and complication[s] due too [sic] the injur[ies] from the

surger[ies] and being thrown out without medication and proper medical treatment

being set up.” He frames his contentions (in his submissions to the district court and his

brief on appeal) as due process violations, but federal courts do not acquire jurisdiction

to hear challenges to benefits rulings merely because those challenges are couched in

constitutional terms. He is complaining about the discontinuation of his benefits, and

the VJRA divests courts of jurisdiction over such claims. See 38 U.S.C. § 511.

If Karmatzis wished to challenge the benefits decision, he needed to appeal that

decision first to the Board of Veteran’s Appeals. See 38 U.S.C. § 7104(a). But because

Karmatzis failed to file an appeal with the Board within one year of the VA’s decision to

discontinue his benefits, the decision became final and cannot now be appealed. Id.

§ 7105(b)(1), (c). And because Karmatzis’s benefits decision cannot be appealed, it

would be futile to allow him to amend his complaint. Therefore, the district court also

properly denied Karmatzis leave to amend his complaint. 

Accordingly, we AFFIRM the judgment of the district court.