Opinion ID: 2670981
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Bove Decision

Text: As noted above, in Bove v. Shinseki the Veterans Court directed the Clerk of the Court to identify late appeals and issue show-cause orders for why these appeals should not be dismissed. 25 Vet. App. at 140-43. Ms. Checo and Amicus 2 both argue that Bove, which was never appealed to this court, should now be overruled. We have jurisdiction to review Veterans Court decisions concerning any challenge to an interpretation of a statute, regulation, or rule under 38 U.S.C. § 7292(a). Cummings v. West, 136 F.3d 1468, 1471 (Fed. Cir. 1998); Cox v. West, 149 F.3d 1360, 1362 (Fed. Cir. 1998) (“These questions of legal interpretation are clearly within our jurisdiction.”). 2 The Federal Circuit Bar Association filed an amicus curiae brief in support of Ms. Checo. CHECO v. SHINSEKI 5 “Such legal determinations of the Veterans Court are reviewed without deference.” Bingham v. Nicholson, 421 F.3d 1346, 1348 (Fed. Cir. 2005) (citation omitted). To begin her argument, Ms. Checo notes the distinction between non-jurisdictional time limitations, which are waivable, and jurisdictional limitations, which are not. See, e.g., Eberhart v. United States, 546 U.S. 12, 2021 (2005) (“[C]laim-processing rules thus assure relief to a party properly raising them, but do not compel the same result if the party forfeits them”). She argues that here the Veterans Court’s practice of raising timeliness issues on its own eliminates the opportunity for the Secretary to waive the right to challenge the non-jurisdictional appeal period limitation. Ms. Checo also argues that if Congress had wanted § 7266(a) to be non-waivable, it would have done so. Instead, according to Ms. Checo, this Veterans Court procedure creates the appearance of bias against disabled veterans. Cf. Barrett v. Nicholson, 466 F.3d 1038, 1044 (Fed. Cir. 2006) (“[I]t was for the purpose of ensuring that veterans were treated fairly by the government and to see that all veterans entitled to benefits received them that Congress provided for judicial review . . . .”). Next, Ms. Checo points out that judicial review of Veterans Board decisions is an adversarial process, so she contends that only the parties should present the issues. See Bobbitt v. Principi, 17 Vet. App. 547, 552 (2004) (“[F]iling an appeal to this Court is not an action within the ‘non-adversarial, manifestly pro-claimant veterans’ benefits system. Rather, [it] . . . is the first step in an adversarial process challenging the Secretary’s decision on benefits.”) (citation omitted). Finally, Ms. Checo requests that we compare the Veterans Court to the Social Security disability program, as it has been called an analogous system. Henderson ex rel. Henderson v. Shinseki, 131 S.Ct. 1197, 1204 (2011). And 6 CHECO v. SHINSEKI the Supreme Court has stated that the time period for filing an appeal for judicial review of a Social Security decision is waivable. See Bowen v. New York, 476 U.S. 467, 474 n.10 (1986). We have considered all of Ms. Checo’s arguments, but we do not find them persuasive. While Ms. Checo relies on several cases that distinguish non-jurisdictional and jurisdictional limitations, she fails to point to a single case that affirmatively states that the Veterans Court cannot raise sua sponte a non-jurisdictional limitation. Further, as the Government notes, the Supreme Court has permitted district courts to raise non-jurisdictional statute of limitations issues sua sponte. See, e.g., Day v. McDonough, 547 U.S. 202, 209 (2006) (“In sum, we hold that district courts are permitted, but not obliged, to consider, sua sponte, the timeliness of a state prisoner’s habeas petition.”). 3 Regarding Ms. Checo’s arguments that Congress could have, and did not, make § 7266(a) unwaivable, we conclude that Congress nonetheless gave the Veterans Court broad discretion to prescribe, interpret, and apply 3 Ms. Checo attempts to discount the relevance of Day, arguing that in Wood v. Milyard, the Supreme Court referred to such habeas petition cases as “modest exception[s]” to the general forfeiture rule that “implicate[] values beyond the concerns of the parties.” 132 S.Ct. 1826, 1832 (2012) (citation omitted). Additionally, Amicus claims that this decision advises appellate courts to use restraint in applying sua sponte review. However, Wood does not apply to this case; in Wood an appeals court dismissed a petition as untimely after the state waived the issue below. Id. at 1834. In contrast, here the Veterans Court notified the Secretary of the issue before it was required to file a pleading in the case, so a waiver never occurred. CHECO v. SHINSEKI 7 its own rules. The Veterans Court uses that discretion here to require that a claimant file an NOA within the time allowed by law. See U.S. Vet. App. R. 38(b) (authorizing the Veterans Court to take “such action as the court deems appropriate, including dismissal of the appeal,” when a party fails to comply with a rule of the Veterans Court). Further, the fact that proceedings in the Veterans Court are adversarial does not prevent the Veterans Court from managing its cases, which it does by requiring its Clerk to identify late NOAs and issue show-cause orders before any substantive pleadings are filed. And we note that even when an NOA is untimely, the Veterans Court still considers whether equitable tolling applies, so this procedure does not create any unfair bias. Finally, despite the similarities between Veterans Appeals and Social Security cases, we note that parties in Social Security cases are still subject to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8(c). This rule requires a party to state any affirmative defense in response to a pleading, so it makes sense in those cases to allow waiver of non- jurisdictional time limitations. But the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure do not apply to the appellate Veterans Court. For the foregoing reasons, we see no reason at this time to overrule the holding in Bove that grants the Veterans Court authority to address untimely filings sua sponte. 4 We conclude that in this case the Veterans Court 4 We need not consider the Veterans Court’s sepa- rate holding in Bove that the 120-day appeal period is not a matter subject to waiver or forfeiture by the Secretary; in this case such waiver or forfeiture never occurred. See n.3, infra. 8 CHECO v. SHINSEKI did not err by raising sua sponte the untimely appeal issue.