Source: https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F3/136/1304/553662/
Timestamp: 2020-06-05 22:38:29
Document Index: 391723808

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 3', '§ 701', '§ 552', '§ 1', '§ 553', '§ 4005', '§ 7105', '§ 3', '§ 3', '§ 4', '§ 7292', '§ 7292', '§ 7292', '§ 402', '§ 5107', '§ 3', '§ 19']

Andrew M. Collaro, Claimant-appellant, v. Togo G. West, Jr., Acting Secretary of Veterans Affairs,respondent-appellee, 136 F.3d 1304 (Fed. Cir. 1998) :: Justia
Justia › US Law › Case Law › Federal Courts › Courts of Appeals › Federal Circuit › 1998 › Andrew M. Collaro, Claimant-appellant, v. Togo G. West, Jr., Acting Secretary of Veterans Affairs,re...
Andrew M. Collaro, Claimant-appellant, v. Togo G. West, Jr., Acting Secretary of Veterans Affairs,respondent-appellee, 136 F.3d 1304 (Fed. Cir. 1998)
US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit - 136 F.3d 1304 (Fed. Cir. 1998) Feb. 19, 1998
Andrew M. Collaro appeals from the judgment of the Court of Veterans Appeals dismissing his appeal from the Board of Veterans Appeals for lack of jurisdiction. Collaro v. Brown, No. 95-822 (Vet. App. Jan.7, 1997). Because the Court of Veterans Appeals erred in dismissing his constitutional and statutory claims, we vacate and remand.
Collaro served on active duty in the United States Navy from April 1967 through January 1971 and then from November 1973 through November 1975, before he was honorably discharged. In August 1976, the Veterans Administration Regional Office awarded him an initial disability rating of fifty percent for chronic schizophrenic reaction undifferentiated type severe, effective from November 8, 1975. After three years of unemployment, the regional office increased Collaro's disability rating to seventy percent and granted him total disability based on individual unemployability. No further examinations were to be scheduled and on September 16, 1980, the agency sent him a letter stating: "Your disability was determined to be permanent." The individual unemployability evaluation and the benefits attributable to it could not be reduced except upon "a determination that actual employability is established by clear and convincing evidence." 38 C.F.R. § 3.343(c) (1) (1980).
In 1980, the central office of the agency distributed VA Circular 21-80-7 (Sept. 9, 1980), directing regional offices to review the appropriateness of grants of individual unemployability in order to reestablish control over the "many questionable or erroneous grants of individual unemployability." The circular directed regional offices to assign a one hundred percent (total) schedular evaluation "if unemployability is directly attributable to a service-connected neuro-psychiatric condition as unemployability is a criterion for the total evaluation." This circular was not published in the Federal Register or the Code of Federal Regulations, and the public was never invited to comment on the agency's new rating procedures, as might be required by the Administrative Procedures Act, 5 U.S.C. §§ 701-706, see 5 U.S.C. §§ 552(a) (1) (publication requirements), 553 (notice and comment requirements), or similar agency regulations adopted pursuant to chapter 72 of title 38 of the United States Code, see, e.g., 38 C.F.R. §§ 1.12, 1.551 (1980) (implementing provision of 5 U.S.C. §§ 553 and 552 respectively).**
On May 10, 1989, the agency sent Collaro a statement of the case, as required by 38 U.S.C. § 4005(d) (1) (1988) (now codified at 38 U.S.C. § 7105(d)). On appeal, the board remanded the case to the agency so that the regional office could advise Collaro about recent statutory and regulatory changes (effective February 3, 1988) governing entitlement to evaluations in excess of seventy percent. The regional office reconfirmed the seventy percent rating under the new criteria and issued a supplemental statement of the case on March 23, 1990. Once again on appeal, the board held in July 1990 that an evaluation in excess of seventy percent was not warranted. Acting as Collaro's designated representative, the Paralyzed Veterans of America requested reconsideration in May 1991, reasoning as follows:
The Regional Office, in its decision of November 30, 1984, terminated the veteran's total disability rating without considering [38 C.F.R.] § 3.343(a). As conceded by the VA General Counsel in [Swan v. Derwinski, 2 Vet. App. 72 (Vet. App. 1991) ], the failure of the Regional Office, in this case, to consider § 3.343(a), in its rating decision of November 1984, makes the rating decision and the resultant termination of the veteran's total disability rating void. Being void the reduction must be held to be of no force and effect and warrants a restoration of the veteran's 100% rating.
The Secretary argued that Collaro's claim--that termination of his individual unemployability rating was void ab initio--was not properly before the court. The Secretary also requested a remand so that the board could consider 38 C.F.R. § 4.16(c) (1991), which relates to the assignment of one hundred percent schedular evaluations to veterans who have a seventy percent evaluation and are precluded from "securing or following a substantially gainful occupation." In March 1993, the court vacated the board's 1990 decision and remanded Collaro's appeal for consideration of section 4.16(c). The Paralyzed Veterans of America filed comments with the board on Collaro's behalf, alleging inter alia, clear and unmistakable error. In October 1993, the board's deputy vice chairman stated in a letter to Collaro: "The Board's decision in this case will be limited to the issue remanded by the Court of Veterans Appeals. If you believe that the issue of clear and unmistakable error in a previous Board decision is intertwined with the issue remanded by the Court, you may approach the Court for modification of its order." Collaro responded to the board's letter stating that he could find no authority for the board's refusal to address the issue of clear and unmistakable error. Further consideration of his case, however, was deferred pending the outcome of Smith v. Brown, 35 F.3d 1516 (Fed. Cir. 1994).
The board reviewed the record. Following the regulatory criteria established for the schedular ratings, it granted Collaro a total schedular rating, but did not consider his section 3.343(c) argument: " [T]he Board's decision in this case is strictly limited to the issue remanded by the Court in March 1993 as there has been no modification of that order in the record."
Our jurisdiction to review the Court of Veterans Appeals is limited by statute: "After a decision of the United States Court of Veterans Appeals is entered in a case, any party to the case may obtain a review of the decision with respect to the validity of any statute or regulation ... or any interpretation thereof (other than a determination as to a factual matter) that was relied on by the Court in making the decision." 38 U.S.C. § 7292(a) (1994); see also id. § 7292(c) and (d). We lack jurisdiction to review the court's factual determinations or its application of law to particular facts. See id. § 7292(d) (2). Because the issue of jurisdiction presents a question of law, we review de novo the Court of Veterans Appeals' dismissal for lack of jurisdiction. See Wick v. Brown, 40 F.3d 367, 370 (Fed. Cir. 1994).
Nevertheless, the agency argues that the Court of Veterans Appeals may review a board decision only if the appeal was initiated by an NOD filed on or after November 18, 1988. See Veterans' Judicial Review Act of 1988, Pub. L. No. 100-687, § 402, 102 Stat. 4105 (1988); see also Hamilton v. Brown, 39 F.3d 1574, 1575-77 (Fed. Cir. 1994). Although Collaro filed an NOD in 1989, the agency says this NOD contested the reduction in his schedular rating from one hundred to seventy percent, not the constitutionality of the circular or the termination of his individual unemployability basis for benefits in 1981. We disagree.
Congress has passed statutes and the agency regulations to assist veterans in establishing facts sufficient to support well-grounded claims and to give them every benefit that can be supported in law. See 38 U.S.C. § 5107 (1994) (" [A] person who submits a claim for benefits under a law administered by the Secretary shall have the burden of submitting evidence sufficient to justify a belief by a fair and impartial individual that the claim is well grounded. The Secretary shall assist such a claimant in developing the facts pertinent to the claim...."); 38 C.F.R. § 3.103(a) ("Statement of policy .... Proceedings before VA are ex parte in nature, and it is the obligation of VA to assist a claimant in developing the facts pertinent to the claim and to render a decision which grants every benefit that can be supported in law while protecting the interests of the Government. The provisions of this section apply to all claims for benefits and relief, and decisions thereon...."). The agency also has the obligation to "provide the appellant notice of ... [a] summary of applicable law and regulations." 38 C.F.R. § 19.120 (1989).
Collaro filed a vague NOD. The agency responded by framing the issues in a statement of the case in terms of whether he was entitled to a seventy percent or a one hundred percent schedular rating. Collaro responded to the merits of this adjudicative determination as they were presented to him. As it turns out, the board now agrees that Collaro was correct on the facts and it has since granted him benefits commensurate with a total schedular rating. However, it was not until the Paralyzed Veterans of America requested reconsideration of that board decision, on remand from the Court of Veterans Appeals in 1991, that Collaro cut the rough stone of his NOD to reveal the statutory and constitutional radix of his issue that lay within. Although the agency reasonably may have believed that his disagreement could be resolved on the facts about the degree of his disability, without challenging the constitutionality of the circular, Collaro's rights and interests should not be foreclosed because the agency framed his issue as " [I]f Mr. Collaro is entitled to a 100% rate for his service-connected psychiatric condition." Nor should the agency's decision or its failure to provide him with the constitutional and statutory bases for challenges to the circular foreclose his attempts to raise such a challenge when it becomes clear that the 'issue,' as previously framed, insufficiently characterized the full extent of his disagreement.
In Ledford v. Gober, --- F.3d ---- (Fed. Cir. 1998), we affirmed the Court of Veterans Appeals' dismissal for lack of jurisdiction in part because the veteran did not present constitutional and statutory challenges to the agency, and in part because Ledford failed to exhaust his administrative remedies in a way that would "avert the need for constitutional adjudication," id. at ---- (quoting Blitz v. Donovan, 740 F.2d 1241, 1248 (D.C. Cir. 1984)), "eliminate the need for the courts to pass on the constitutional questions," id. at ---- (quoting Darr v. Carter, 640 F.2d 163, 165 (8th Cir. 1981)), or so that "constitutional challenges [may be] obviated," id. at ----. In both these respects, Collaro's circumstances are different. Unlike Ledford's 1991 NOD, which specifically identified and thus limited his issue to the effective date of his disability rating, Collaro's NOD was not so narrowly limited. In the context of what was supposed to be a nonadversarial, ex parte, paternalistic system for adjudicating veterans' claims, Collaro's 1989 NOD sufficiently identified the constitutional and notice and rulemaking issues that he had with the agency's March 28, 1989 letter.