NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.

United States Court of Appeals 

for the Federal Circuit ______________________

ERIC JEROME HOLLINS,

Claimant-Appellant

v.

ROBERT WILKIE, SECRETARY OF VETERANS 

AFFAIRS,

Respondent-Appellee

______________________

2020-1813

______________________

Appeal from the United States Court of Appeals for 

Veterans Claims in No. 18-6555, Judge Coral Wong Pietsch.

______________________

Decided: October 13, 2020

______________________

ERIC JEROME HOLLINS, Bastrop, LA, pro se. 

 ALISON VICKS, Commercial Litigation Branch, Civil Division, United States Department of Justice, Washington, 

DC, for respondent-appellee. Also represented by JEFFREY 

B. CLARK, ROBERT EDWARD KIRSCHMAN, JR., LOREN MISHA 

PREHEIM; BRANDON A. JONAS, Y. KEN LEE, Office of General 

Counsel, United States Department of Veterans Affairs, 

Washington, DC. 

Case: 20-1813 Document: 21 Page: 1 Filed: 10/13/2020
2 HOLLINS v. WILKIE

 ______________________

Before NEWMAN, DYK, and TARANTO, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM.

Eric Jerome Hollins appeals the decision of the United 

States Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims (“Veterans 

Court”) that affirmed a decision of the Board of Veterans’ 

Appeals (“Board”), denying him entitlement to service connection for diabetes. Because we lack jurisdiction to review 

the issue Mr. Hollins appears to raise in this appeal, we 

dismiss.

BACKGROUND

Mr. Hollins served on active duty in the Navy from 

April 1991 to February 1995. He also served on several 

short periods of active duty for training between 1996 and 

April 2003. During his periods of active duty, Mr. Hollins’s 

medical examinations, including for blood sugar, were normal. For example, in November 2001, Mr. Hollins’s blood 

work showed a blood sugar level of 93, which is within the 

normal range of 70 to 108.

In November 2003, Mr. Hollins was diagnosed with diabetes. Mr. Hollins filed a claim for service connection for 

type 2 diabetes mellitus in February 2004 with the Department of Veterans Affairs (“VA”). In support of his claim, 

he submitted various records. After review of his submission, a VA regional office (“RO”) denied his claim, finding 

that the evidence did not show that his diabetes was related to his service. A series of appeals and remands followed, during which the Board repeatedly ordered the RO 

to supplement Mr. Hollins’s record.

The series of remands uncovered several facts. For example, at a Board hearing, Mr. Hollins testified that his 

diabetes may have been caused by environmental hazards 

while deployed to Southwest Asia. After this testimony, 

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HOLLINS v. WILKIE 3

the RO received a military records specialist memorandum 

that stated that Mr. Hollins was not deployed aboard any 

naval vessels after 1995 and that, prior to 1995, Mr. Hollins was deployed aboard the USS Kitty Hawk, which did 

not dock in Southwest Asia during his service. Mr. Hollins 

also underwent several VA examinations during the remands. At his third and final VA examination, the examiner concluded that Mr. Hollins was first diagnosed with 

diabetes in November 2003 and that there was no objective 

evidence that Mr. Hollins had diabetes during his active 

duty training service period. The examiner also noted that, 

according to Mr. Hollins’s service records, Mr. Hollins could 

not have been exposed to environmental hazards while deployed on the USS Kitty Hawk because that ship did not

dock in Southwest Asia during his service. Given this record, the RO denied Mr. Hollins’s claim, and he appealed to 

the Board.

On July 31, 2018, the Board issued a final decision that 

denied Mr. Hollins’s entitlement to VA benefits for diabetes. After weighing the evidence, the Board concluded that 

Mr. Hollins’s diabetes “was neither incurred in nor aggravated” by his active duty service or by any of his active duty 

training periods. J.A. 10. The Board also found that Mr. 

Hollins’s assertions were “contradicted by the objective 

medical record” and “the opinions of three VA examiners.” 

Id. at 11. It credited the opinions of the three examiners 

as “competent, credible, and entitled to significant weight.” 

Id. at 12. The Board also noted that the only contrary evidence (outside of Mr. Hollins’s lay statements) was the testimony from his mother, a registered nurse, stating that 

her son appeared to begin suffering from diabetes following 

his active duty service. Although the Board found his 

mother’s testimony credible, it concluded that her testimony was “contradicted by the opinions of the three VA examiners and the objective medical evidence of record.” Id. 

Mr. Hollins then appealed to the Veterans Court.

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4 HOLLINS v. WILKIE

The Veterans Court affirmed the Board’s findings, concluding that Mr. Hollins “ha[d] failed to point to any evidence demonstrating that the Board erred in finding that 

his diabetes did not have its onset during his active duty or 

periods of active duty for training.” Id. at 7. The court 

noted that Mr. Hollins did not identify any other records 

that the VA failed to obtain and that, given the evidence 

that the USS Kitty Hawk never docked in Southwest Asia, 

it was “unclear how there would be any records of treatment” for conditions related to environmental hazards in 

that area. Id. Mr. Hollins appealed to this court.

DISCUSSION

We have limited jurisdiction to review decisions by the 

Veterans Court. Wanless v. Shinseki, 618 F.3d 1333, 1336 

(Fed. Cir. 2010). We have exclusive 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. 38 U.S.C. § 7292(c). 

We cannot, however, review “a challenge to a factual determination” or “a challenge to a law or regulation as applied 

to the facts of a particular case” absent a constitutional issue. Id. § 7292(d)(2); Bastien v. Shinseki, 599 F.3d 1301, 

1306 (Fed. Cir. 2010) (“The evaluation and weighing of evidence and the drawing of appropriate inferences from it 

are factual determinations committed to the discretion of 

the fact-finder. We lack jurisdiction to review these determinations.”), overruled on other grounds by Francway v. 

Wilkie, 940 F.3d 1304 (Fed. Cir. 2019).

It is unclear what exactly Mr. Hollins challenges on 

this appeal. According to his informal brief, Mr. Hollins

does not challenge the Veterans Court’s decision as it relates to the validity or interpretation of a statute or regulation or a constitutional issue. Nor could he. In its 

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HOLLINS v. WILKIE 5

opinion, the Veterans Court did not interpret any statutes

or regulations or decide any constitutional issues.

The only argument that Mr. Hollins appears to make 

is that his medical records from his deployment to Southwest Asia were not secured and included in his record before the Board. The Veterans Court, however, concluded 

that Mr. Hollins had shown no error in the Board’s findings 

of fact, including that Mr. Hollins’s only service on board a 

ship was on the USS Kitty Hawk, which did not dock anywhere in Southwest Asia, and that, as a result, his service 

on that ship could not have exposed him to any environmental hazards in that area. To the extent Mr. Hollins disputes the factual determinations made by the Veterans 

Court and the Board, this court is without jurisdiction to

review those factual determinations. See 38 U.S.C. 

§ 7292(d)(2); Saunders v. Wilkie, 886 F.3d 1356, 1360 (Fed. 

Cir. 2018) (“Absent a constitutional issue, . . . we lack jurisdiction to review factual determinations or the application of law to the particular facts of an appeal from the 

Veterans Court.”).

Accordingly, we dismiss Mr. Hollins’s appeal for lack of 

jurisdiction.

DISMISSED

COSTS

No costs.

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