Case Name: Jasper BOGGS, Jr., Claimant-Appellant, v. Togo D. WEST, Jr., Secretary of Veterans Affairs, Respondent-Appellee
Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
Jurisdiction: United States
Decision Date: 1999-08-18
Citations: 188 F.3d 1335
Docket Number: No. 99-7003
Parties: Jasper BOGGS, Jr., Claimant-Appellant, v. Togo D. WEST, Jr., Secretary of Veterans Affairs, Respondent-Appellee.
Judges: Before NEWMAN, LOURIE, and KELLY, Circuit Judges.
Reporter: West's Veterans Appeals Reporter
Volume: 13
Pages: 1335–1341

Head Matter:
Jasper BOGGS, Jr., Claimant-Appellant, v. Togo D. WEST, Jr., Secretary of Veterans Affairs, Respondent-Appellee.
No. 99-7003.
United States Court of Appeals, Federal Circuit.
Aug. 18, 1999.
Rehearing Denied; Suggestion for Rehearing En Banc Declined Oct. 22, 1999.
Kenneth M. Carpenter, Carpenter, Chartered, Topeka, Kansas, argued for claimant-appellant.
Colleen A. Conry, Trial Attorney, Commercial Litigation Branch, Civil Division, Department of Justice, Washington, DC, argued for respondent-appellee. On the brief were David M. Cohen, Director; Mark A. Melnick, Assistant Director; and Tara A. Hurley, Attorney. Of counsel on the brief were Donald E. Zeglin, Deputy Assistant General Counsel; and Michelle D. Doses, Attorney, Department of Veterans Affairs, Office of the General Counsel, Washington, DC.
Before NEWMAN, LOURIE, and KELLY, Circuit Judges.
The Honorable Paul J. Kelly, Jr., Circuit Judge, United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, sitting by designation.

Opinion:
Opinion by the court filed by Circuit Judge LOURIE. Dissenting opinion filed by Circuit Judge NEWMAN.
LOURIE, Circuit Judge.
Jasper Boggs, Jr., appeals from the decision of the United States Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims affirming the denial of his claim for service connection. See Boggs v. West, 11 Vet.App. 334 (1998). Because Boggs improperly presents this court with an argument of statutory construction that was not presented to the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims, we affirm.
BACKGROUND
During the period from 1963 to 1966, veteran Boggs had been treated at several Veterans Administration (VA) hospitals where he was diagnosed as suffering from anxiety, depression, hysteria, inadequate personality, below normal intelligence, and alcoholism. In 1967, while seeking treatment in a VA hospital for a peptic ulcer, Boggs consented to an experimental LSD treatment. Boggs was subsequently diagnosed as having chronic anxiety, schizophrenia, and a temporal lobe disorder.
In 1983, Boggs filed a claim for compensation at a VA Regional Office (RO) seeking service connection for the LSD treatments he received while hospitalized. The RO denied Boggs' claim, concluding that the LSD treatments did not cause or aggravate Boggs' psychiatric problems. The Board of Veterans' Appeals affirmed the denial. In December 1998, Boggs attempted to reopen his claim for compensation for the LSD treatment pursuant to 38 U.S.C. § 1151. At the time, that statute stated in relevant part that:
"Where any veteran shall have suffered an injury, or an aggravation of an injury, as the result of hospitalization, medical or surgical treatment, . and not the result of such veteran's own willful misconduct, and such injury or aggravation results in additional disability to or the death of such veteran, disability or death compensation . shall be awarded in the same manner as if such disability, aggravation, or death were service-connected.
38 U.S.C. § 1151 (1988 & Supp. V 1993). The RO again denied Boggs' claim, concluding that the new evidence that Boggs had submitted did not suggest that the LSD treatment caused a progressive disorder of his nervous system. The Board again affirmed, finding that compensation was not allowable under § 1151 because Boggs did not suffer an injury as a result of his 1967 LSD treatment. The Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims affirmed, holding that there was a plausible basis in the record for the Board's factual conclusion.
Boggs appealed the denial of service connection to this court.
DISCUSSION
Our jurisdiction to review decisions of the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims is limited. We may, inter alia, "interpret . statutory provisions, to the extent presented and necessary to a decision." 38 U.S.C. § 7292(c) (1994). However, unless a constitutional issue is presented, we may not review factual determinations or the application of law to a particular set of facts. See id. § 7292(d)(2). We therefore cannot review and must accept as definitive the conclusion that Boggs did not suffer injury as a result of the LSD treatments he received while hospitalized.
Recognizing our limited standard of review, instead of making a fact-based argument, Boggs argues to us that the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims misinterpreted 38 U.S.C. § 1151. According to Boggs, it is not necessary for a claimant seeking compensation thereunder to show that the hospitalization or treatment caused the injury complained of. Instead, Boggs asserts that the mere temporal coincidence of the hospitalization or treatment and the injury is sufficient. The government responds that Boggs did not raise this argument of statutory interpretation in the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims, and that it may therefore not do so here.
We agree with the government. We have reviewed the brief that Boggs submitted to the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims, and it is clear that in that court Boggs only argued the factual issue whether the LSD caused his psychiatric injuries. Thus, Boggs' brief stated that "the issue at hand is simply whether the LSD treatment administered by the VA either caused or aggravated the veteran's psychiatric disability." J.A. at A27. Moreover, Boggs summarized his argument as follows: "The Board's reasons for dismissing the substantial evidence in support of the veteran's claim are insufficient. When the evidence in favor of the veteran is given proper weight, the preponderance of the evidence supports the veteran's claim." Id. atA26.
Nowhere in Boggs' brief did he raise in the court below the "temporal coincidence" theory of statutory interpretation that he currently raises on appeal here. Nor did the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims make reference to or decide this issue. As a general rule, an appellate court will not hear on appeal issues that were not clearly raised in the proceedings below. See Singleton v. Wulff, 428 U.S. 106, 120, 96 S.Ct. 2868, 49 L.Ed.2d 826 (1976); Braun, Inc. v. Dynamics Corp. of Am., 975 F.2d 815, 821 (Fed.Cir.1992). This rule ensures that "parties may have the opportunity to offer all the evidence they believe relevant to the issues . [and] in order that litigants may not be surprised on appeal by final decision there of issues upon which they have had no opportunity to introduce evidence." Hormel v. Helvering, 312 U.S. 552, 556, 61 S.Ct. 719, 85 L.Ed. 1037 (1941).
The dissent asserts that we are obligated to hear the new issue raised on appeal. As indicated above, the argument below was predicated entirely on the factual question whether causation had been shown. The question of statutory interpretation was neither explicitly nor implicitly raised.
The dissent cites § 7292(c) as requiring us to hear an issue that would otherwise contravene sound judicial practice. However, that section provides for our jurisdiction to hear appeals and issues that are "presented and necessary" to a case brought before us. It does not require us to decide an issue that has been waived. This is especially so in light of § 7292(a), which governs the right of appeal, and which contains the qualifying language "that was relied on below." The Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims did not rely on the interpretation of law that is now raised on appeal. Thus, Boggs has no statutory right of appeal on an issue that was not raised and relied on below.
Finally, the dissent cites Madden v. Gober, 125 F.3d 1477 (Fed.Cir.1997), in support of the view that we should consider Boggs' argument. In Madden, we entertained a veteran's statutory interpretation argument. However, nowhere does Madden discuss whether the veteran first raised his argument in the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims. It is therefore not precedent on this point for this case. See National Cable Television Ass'n v. American Cinema Editors, Inc., 937 F.2d 1572, 1581 (Fed.Cir.1991) ("When an issue is not argued or is ignored in a decision, such decision is not precedent to be followed in a subsequent case in which the issue arises."); Webster v. Fall, 266 U.S. 507, 511, 45 S.Ct. 148, 69 L.Ed. 411 (1925) ("Questions which merely lurk in the record, neither brought to the attention of the court nor ruled upon, are not to be considered as having been so decided as to constitute precedents."). Therefore, while the disposition in Madden surely constituted law of the case, it has no precedential value for us concerning whether a veteran need not first raise an argument in the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims before raising that argument in this court.
CONCLUSION
Because Boggs did not raise his argument concerning the interpretation of § 1151 in the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims, we will not consider this argument in the first instance. Accordingly, the court's decision is
AFFIRMED.
. Section 1151 was amended in 1996 in a manner irrelevant to this appeal. See Pub.L. No. 104-21, Title IV, § 422(a), 110 Stat. 2926 (1996).