NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.

United States Court of Appeals 

for the Federal Circuit ______________________ 

EDUARDO H. HINOJOSA,

Claimant-Appellant,

v.

 Eric K. Shinseki, SECRETARY OF VETERANS 

AFFAIRS,

Respondent-Appellee.

______________________ 

2012-7176

______________________ 

Appeal from the United States Court of Appeals for 

Veterans Claims in No. 10-258, Judge Bruce E. Kasold.

______________________ 

Decided: May 15, 2013 

______________________ 

 EDUARDO H. HINOJOSA, of Irving, Texas, pro se. 

 CORINNE A. NIOSI, Trial Attorney, Commercial Litigation Branch, Civil Division, United States Department of 

Justice, of Washington, DC, for respondent-appellee. 

With her on the brief were STUART F. DELERY, Acting 

Assistant Attorney General, JEANNE E. DAVIDSON, Director, TODD M. HUGHES, Deputy Director. Of counsel on the 

brief were MICHAEL J. TIMINSKI, Deputy Assistant Gen-
2 EDUARDO HINOJOSA v. SHINSEKI

eral Counsel, and AMANDA R. BLACKMON, Attorney, United States Department of Veterans Affairs, of Washington, 

DC. 

______________________ 

Before LOURIE, O'MALLEY, and TARANTO, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM. 

DECISION

Eduardo Hinojosa, whose claim for veterans’ benefits

the Board of Veterans’ Appeals rejected, did not file a 

notice of appeal to the Court of Appeals for Veterans 

Claims from that rejection within 120 days, as required

by statute. The Veterans Court dismissed the appeal as 

untimely after giving Mr. Hinojosa an opportunity to 

explain why he missed the 120-day deadline. Hinojosa v. 

Shinseki, No. 10-258, 2012 WL 3038177 (Vet. App. July 

26, 2012). Because of the limits on this court’s own jurisdiction to review decisions of the Veterans Court, we now 

dismiss Mr. Hinojosa’s appeal from the Veterans Court’s 

dismissal. 

BACKGROUND

Mr. Hinojosa served on active duty in the United 

States military from January 1966 to November 1967. 

Years later, he filed a claim for veterans’ benefits, asserting that he was suffering from peripheral neuropathy of 

the upper extremities and that the condition was connected to his military service. In February 1997, the Department of Veterans Affairs Regional Office in Waco, Texas, 

denied his claim. 

Mr. Hinojosa later sought to reopen that claim and also filed additional claims. The Regional Office denied the 

claims. Mr. Hinojosa appealed to the Board of Veterans’ 

Appeals, which, in November 2007, remanded the matter 

for additional evidentiary development. The matter 

returned to the Board after the remand process was 
 EDUARDO HINOJOSA v. SHINSEKI 3

complete, and on August 27, 2009, the Board denied Mr. 

Hinojosa’s claims. The Board sent Mr. Hinojosa a letter 

enclosing both its decision and VA Form 4597 (June 

2008). The Form notified him that he had a right to 

appeal the Board’s decision to the Veterans Court and, as 

to timing, that he had “120 days from the date [the 

Board’s] decision was mailed to [him] (as shown on the 

first page of [the] decision) to file a Notice of Appeal with 

the Court.” 

Mr. Hinojosa filed, no earlier than January 21, 2010, 

what the Veterans Court treated as a notice of appeal 

from the Board decision.1 That filing was more than 120 

days after the date shown on the first page of the Board’s

decision. In a February 4, 2010 order, the Veterans Court 

found that it could not review Mr. Hinojosa’s appeal 

because he had not filed it within the 120-day period for 

appeal established by statute, 38 U.S.C. § 7266(a). But 

the court allowed Mr. Hinojosa 30 days to show why that 

conclusion was wrong, i.e., to show why his appeal should 

not be dismissed for untimeliness. In response, in March

2010, Mr. Hinojosa submitted a medical report and two 

1 The docket sheet of the Veterans Court records a 

notice of appeal dated January 21, 2010. App. 4. But the 

only document included in the record as the notice of 

appeal is stamped as received by the Veterans Court on 

January 25, 2010. App. 29. That document, we note, 

seems less likely to be an appeal from the Board decision 

of August 2009 than an appeal from a Regional Office 

decision, dated September 28, 2009, on a distinct claim 

filed by Mr. Hinojosa. App. 29, 30, 31-34. The Veterans 

Court evidently treated the late-January filing, however, 

as a notice of appeal from the Board decision and calculated timeliness on that assumption. That treatment was 

favorable to Mr. Hinojosa, who otherwise filed no notice of 

appeal from the Board decision at all. 

 
4 EDUARDO HINOJOSA v. SHINSEKI

statements that detailed current and past medical conditions.

On April 29, 2010, the Veterans Court dismissed Mr. 

Hinojosa’s appeal. The court held that it was untimely 

under the statutory deadline and that, under this court’s 

decision in Henderson v. Shinseki, 589 F.3d 1201 (Fed. 

Cir. 2009) (en banc), “equitable tolling” of that deadline 

was not available. Mr. Hinojosa appealed to this court, 

which vacated the Veterans Court’s dismissal and remanded the matter for further consideration, because the 

Supreme Court had newly held in Henderson v. Shinseki, 

131 S. Ct. 1197 (2011), that the 120-day deadline for filing 

an appeal to the Veterans Court is, in fact, subject to 

“equitable tolling” if a sufficient showing is made in a 

particular case. Hinojosa v. Shinseki, 424 F. App’x. 946, 

947 (Fed. Cir. 2011). 

On remand, the Veterans Court found that the medical report and statements Mr. Hinojosa had submitted in 

March 2010 did not establish that his medical condition

was sufficiently severe to render him incapable of filing 

his appeal before the deadline had passed in late December 2009. But the court allowed Mr. Hinojosa an additional 20 days to provide a new showing of why his appeal 

should not be dismissed. In response, Mr. Hinojosa 

transmitted three e-mail statements to the Veterans 

Court that further detailed his medical history and current medical problems. On July 26, 2012, the Veterans 

Court dismissed his appeal after finding that these explanations did not establish that he was incapable of filing

his appeal within the 120-day period prescribed by statute. Mr. Hinojosa appeals. 

DISCUSSION

This court’s jurisdiction to review decisions of the 

Veterans Court is circumscribed by statute. See 38 U.S.C. 

§ 7292. We have jurisdiction to decide appeals that 

challenge the validity of a decision of the Veterans Court 
 EDUARDO HINOJOSA v. SHINSEKI 5

with respect to a rule of law or the validity of any constitutional provision, statute, or regulation, including any 

interpretation of such a source of law. Id. § 7292(d)(1). 

We do not have jurisdiction to review a challenge to a 

factual determination made by the Veterans Court or a 

challenge to a law or regulation as applied to the facts of a 

particular case unless the challenge presents a constitutional issue. Id. § 7292(d)(2). 

This appeal falls outside our jurisdiction. The Veterans Court dismissed Mr. Hinojosa’s appeal for untimeliness because he did not file within 120 days after the 

Board decision was mailed and he had no ground for 

equitably tolling that 120-day limit. Mr. Hinojosa presents no constitutional or other legal challenge to that 

decision. 

Mr. Hinojosa does not challenge the Veterans Court’s 

finding that he missed the 120-day deadline, which, in 

any event, is a case-specific factual matter raising no 

constitutional issue and hence not within our jurisdiction 

to review. Nor does he claim that the Veterans Court

adopted an incorrect interpretation of the doctrine of 

equitable tolling when it examined whether his failure to 

file before late December 2009 was “a direct result of a 

medical condition that ‘rendered him incapable of rational 

thought or deliberate decision making, or incapable of 

handling [his] own affairs or unable to function [in] society.’” Hinojosa, 2012 WL 3038177, at *1 (quoting Arbas v. 

Nicholson, 403 F.3d 1379, 1381 (Fed. Cir. 2005)). At 

most, Mr. Hinojosa disagrees with the Veterans Court’s 

factual determination that he failed to offer an adequate 

basis for finding the necessary incapacity to excuse his 

failure to meet the 120-day deadline for filing his appeal. But the Veterans Court’s factual determinations, 

and its application of the law to those facts, are not subject to our review. Accordingly, we have no jurisdiction 

over this appeal, which must be dismissed.
6 EDUARDO HINOJOSA v. SHINSEKI

No costs.

DISMISSED