NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.

United States Court of Appeals 

for the Federal Circuit ______________________ 

RONALD JONES, JR.,

Claimant-Appellant,

v.

 Eric K. Shinseki, SECRETARY OF VETERANS 

AFFAIRS,

Respondent-Appellee.

______________________ 

2012-7112

______________________ 

Appeal from the United States Court of Appeals for 

Veterans Claims in No. 10-1618, Judge Donald L. Ivers.

______________________ 

Decided: May 9, 2013 

______________________ 

SEAN A. RAVIN, of Washington, DC, for claimantappellant. 

SARAH M. BIENKOWSKI, Trial Attorney, Commercial 

Litigation Branch, Civil Division, United States Department of Justice, of Washington, DC, for respondentappellee. With her on the brief were STUART F. DELERY, 

Acting Assistant Attorney General, JEANNE E. DAVIDSON, 

Director, and MARTIN F. HOCKEY, JR., Assistant Director. 

Of counsel on the brief were DAVID J. BARRANS, Deputy 

Assistant General Counsel, and CHRISTA A. SHRIBER, 
2 RONALD JONES, JR. v. SHINSEKI

Attorney, United States Department of Veterans Affairs, 

of Washington, DC. 

______________________ 

Before DYK, BRYSON, and REYNA, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM. 

DECISION

Appellant Ronald Jones, Jr., seeks to appeal from a 

decision of the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims 

(“CAVC”), which upheld a ruling of the Board of Veterans’ 

Appeals denying his claim of service connection for a 

psychiatric disorder. Because we lack jurisdiction to 

address the issues raised by Mr. Jones, we dismiss the 

appeal.

BACKGROUND

Mr. Jones served on active duty with the United 

States Navy from 1967 to 1969. Shortly after his discharge, he filed a claim for compensation for “bruises on 

face and head as a result of mugging . . . as well as dizziness [and] slight shock.” Mr. Jones testified that he 

believed the mugging occurred in February of 1969. A 

regional office of the Veterans Administration (“VA”) 

denied his claim. On several occasions since that time, he 

has sought to reopen his claim. He has asserted that the 

psychiatric condition from which he suffers (paranoid 

schizophrenia) is attributable to the head injury he incurred in service and that he is entitled to disability 

compensation on that basis.

As part of its response to a claim Mr. Jones filed in 

1999, the Department of Veterans Affairs (“DVA”) sought 

records relating to his contention that he had been injured 

during a mugging in February of 1969. Based on Mr. 

Jones’s claim that he was assaulted either in Jacksonville 

or in Pensacola, Florida, and was treated at a hospital 

following his injury, the DVA sought records relating to 

the claimed assault and injury from both the Jacksonville 
 RONALD JONES, JR. v. SHINSEKI 3

Sheriff’s Department and the Pensacola Police Department, and from Naval hospitals in both of those cities. 

The DVA received responses from each agency, but none 

of them reported having records relating to Mr. Jones.

After further proceedings, including a remand from 

the Board to the regional office and a subsequent remand 

from the CAVC and the Board for further development of 

Mr. Jones’s claim, the Board ultimately denied his claim 

in 2010 on the ground that there was no evidence that his 

psychiatric disorder was related to any disease or injury 

suffered in service. In the course of its opinion, the Board 

held that the DVA had satisfied its duty to assist Mr. 

Jones in obtaining records relating to his claim. 

The CAVC affirmed. With respect to Mr. Jones’s argument that the DVA did not satisfy its statutory and 

regulatory duty to assist him in developing his claim, the 

court ruled that the DVA had attempted to obtain additional records identified by Mr. Jones and that the court 

discerned “no inadequacy in the Secretary’s performance 

of his duty to assist in obtaining records.” The court 

added that Mr. Jones “was informed in detail of the failed 

attempts to obtain records and made no attempt to either 

provide missing records or provide more specific detail 

regarding the records” before the Board issued its decision.

DISCUSSION

In his appeal to this court, Mr. Jones focuses on the 

DVA’s request for medical records from the Pensacola 

Naval Hospital pertaining to any treatment Mr. Jones 

received for a head injury in February 1969. In its request, the DVA provided the hospital with Mr. Jones’s 

social security number, his branch of service and service 

number, and the approximate dates on which Mr. Jones 

contended he may have received medical treatment at 

that facility. The hospital responded with a form letter in 

which the supervisor of medical records reported that the 

hospital had been unable to identify records relating to 
4 RONALD JONES, JR. v. SHINSEKI

Mr. Jones, but added, “If you can provide any additional 

information such as social security number . . . date of 

birth, whether patient is retired, a veteran, active duty or 

dependent, or date of hospitalization, we will search our 

files further.” 

Mr. Jones contends that after receiving that letter 

from the Pensacola Naval Hospital, the DVA should have 

taken further steps to obtain records from that institution. He argues that because the hospital “asked VA to 

provide additional identifying information regarding Mr. 

Jones in order to further search its files” and the DVA 

“did not respond with any additional identifying information,” the DVA failed to satisfy its duty to assist him in 

developing his claim. In its response, the government

points out that the DVA had already provided identifying 

information, including Mr. Jones’s social security number, 

the fact that Mr. Jones was a former service member (as 

indicated by the references to his service number and the 

branch of the military in which he served), and the dates 

of his possible treatment. The government argues that in 

light of the hospital’s inability to locate any pertinent 

records even with the aid of the information the DVA had 

sent with its request, it was reasonable for the DVA to 

conclude that it would have been futile to resubmit the 

same information to the hospital in a follow-up request.

Mr. Jones characterizes the issue before this court as 

a pure legal question arising from undisputed facts—

whether the statutory and regulatory duty to assist, see

38 U.S.C. § 5103A; 38 C.F.R. § 3.159(c)(2), required the 

DVA to make a further request for information to the 

Pensacola Naval Hospital after the hospital “asked VA to 

provide additional identifying information in order to 

further search its files; and . . . VA did not respond with 

any additional information.” 

Mr. Jones’s characterization of the facts overlooks two 

points. First, the Pensacola hospital did not “ask[] VA to 

provide additional identifying information”; rather, the

hospital stated that if the DVA could provide “any addi-
 RONALD JONES, JR. v. SHINSEKI 5

tional information,” such as a social security number, date 

of birth, status of the patient, and date of treatment, the 

hospital would be willing to search its files further. 

Second, and more importantly, the DVA had already 

provided all of that information except for Mr. Jones’s 

date of birth. It was based on that state of the record, 

which presents a quite different factual picture from the 

one painted by Mr. Jones, that the CAVC ruled that the 

court could “discern no inadequacy in the Secretary’s 

performance of his duty to assist in obtaining records.”

Moreover, contrary to Mr. Jones’s contention, the 

court’s conclusion as to the adequacy of the DVA’s conduct 

in light of its statutory and regulatory duty to assist Mr. 

Jones does not entail an interpretation of a statute or 

regulation. The CAVC’s decision did not turn on its 

interpretation of the statute or regulation requiring the 

DVA to assist claimants in developing their claims, but at 

most constituted the resolution of “a challenge to a law or 

regulation as applied to the facts of a particular case,” and 

thus is not within this court’s jurisdiction to review decisions of the CAVC. See 38 U.S.C. § 7292(d)(2). Because 

this appeal does not fall within our jurisdiction over 

appeals from the CAVC, we dismiss Mr. Jones’s appeal. 

 

No costs.

DISMISSED