Opinion ID: 208216
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: mr. cushman's cue claims

Text: In addition to raising a due process claim, Mr. Cushman raises CUE claims relating to the statutory employability standard applied to his determination, as well as the consideration of his altered medical record. [5] Mr. Cushman argues that his CUE claims compel this court to reverse the decision of the Veterans Court and issue an order directing the Veterans Court to grant Mr. Cushman a TDIU rating effective May 3, 1977. Mr. Cushman's CUE arguments challenging the consideration of his altered medical record and the statutory construction and interpretation of the employability standard applied to his TDIU claim fall within the scope of this court's review under 38 U.S.C. §§ 5109 and 7292. CUE is a very rare and specific kind of error. 38 C.F.R. § 20.1403(a). To establish CUE, an appellant must prove (1) either the correct facts, as they were known at the time, were not before the Board, or the statutory or regulatory provisions in effect at the time of the decision were incorrectly applied, and (2) the alleged error was outcome determinative. Id. Mr. Cushman argues that consideration of the altered medical record constitutes CUE because the correct facts, as they were known at the time, were not before the Board. We agree with Mr. Cushman that the correct facts as known were not before the Board. Mr. Cushman is unable to show, however, whether this error was outcome determinative because the Board did not specify the evidence on which it relied in denying Mr. Cushman's claim. A remand to the Board for a more appropriate explanation of its reasoning is nonetheless unnecessary in view of our resolution of Mr. Cushman's due process claim and the relief awarded in Part IV above. With respect to Mr. Cushman's employability standard argument, we find that the Board's 1980 and 1982 statutory construction and interpretation of the relevant standard did not constitute CUE based on the altered medical record. Mr. Cushman alleges that the 1980 and 1982 Board decisions applied the wrong employability standard in denying his claim for TDIU. Mr. Cushman's claim for TDIU under 38 C.F.R. § 4.16 requires him to demonstrate that his injury precludes him from securing substantially gainful employment. Unemployability under 38 C.F.R. § 4.18 requires an individual to satisfactorily show preclusion from all further employment. Although the Board uses TDIU language and mentions the substantially gainful employment standard in its discussion, the sentence in which the Board states its ultimate holding uses only the word unemployable. Mr. Cushman argues that this language indicates that, notwithstanding the mention of the correct standard elsewhere in the discussion, the ultimate decision of the Board was actually based on the wrong standard. The Board noted in its discussion that Mr. Cushman completed an electronics course and was doing electronics repair work from home at the time of the decision. The Board considered this evidence that sedentary employment was not precluded. Mr. Cushman argues that his repair work consisted of odd jobs, earning him about $100 per month (less than 25% of the poverty level at the time), and can hardly be considered substantially gainful. Mr. Cushman argues that neither the Board nor the Veterans Court construed the term substantially gainful employment, which was a legal error resulting in application of an incorrect statutory standard. Although the Board uses the term unemployable in its decision, Mr. Cushman has not shown that the Board actually employed the wrong standard. The majority of the Board's explanation for its decision uses language from the correct section of the statute. It is only the final sentence that uses language from the wrong section. The choice of wording appears to have been the result of a clerical error or the use of stock language from prior decisions, rather than substantive error. We also find Mr. Cushman's argument that the Board failed to construe the phrase substantially gainful employment to be without consequence. The Board found, in light of the altered medical document, that Mr. Cushman was not incapable of substantially gainful employment because he had electronics training and his condition did not preclude him from sedentary employment. Whether Mr. Cushman's actual electronics work was substantially gainful is irrelevant. The DVA may find that a veteran is physically capable of substantially gainful employment even if he is not currently engaged in such employment. Mr. Cushman has thus failed to show that the outcome of his case would have been different if the Board construed the term as he proposes. We therefore deny Mr. Cushman's request for an order directing the grant of an earlier TDIU effective date. Mr. Cushman is free to argue to the Board or Regional Office on remand that his service-connected disability precluded electronics work that was substantially gainful.