Opinion ID: 2795303
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: equitable tolling is a legal question where

Text: MATERIAL FACTS ARE UNDISPUTED When reviewing decisions of the United States Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims (“Veterans Court”), we are statutorily constrained from considering pure questions of 2 TOOMER v. MCDONALD fact, or the application of law to fact. 38 U.S.C. § 7292(d)(2). A well-recognized exception to this rule exists in the context of equitable tolling. In Bailey v. Principi, we held that when the material facts are not in dispute and the adoption of a particular legal standard of review, such as the rule preventing our review of questions of fact or the application of law to fact, would dictate the result, “this court has treated the question of the availability of equitable tolling as a matter of law that we are authorized by statute to address.” 351 F.3d 1381, 1384 (Fed. Cir. 2003) (emphasis added); accord Bradenburg v. Principi, 371 F.3d 1362, 1363 (Fed. Cir. 2004); Wood v. Peake, 520 F.3d 1345, 1349 (Fed. Cir. 2008). The material facts in this case are not in dispute. The Board issued a decision in Mr. Toomer’s case on June 2, 2009, but that decision was not received by Mr. Toomer. Mr. Toomer called the Department of Veterans Affairs (“VA”) to inquire about the status of his case, informing the VA that he had not received a decision. Prompted by that call, the VA mailed a package to Mr. Toomer that included a cover letter, a copy of the Board’s decision, and a notice of appellate rights. The cover letter was machine stamped with the date of August 4, 2009. The copy of the Board’s decision, however, had an informally-styled date (“6/02/09”) handwritten at an angle on its first page. The notice of appellate rights set forth standard boilerplate instructions, stating, “You have 120 days from the date this decision was mailed to you (as shown on the first page of this decision) to file a Notice of Appeal with the Court.” J.A. 21 (emphasis added). At the time the VA mailed the copy of the decision to Mr. Toomer, 72 of the 120 days provided in 38 U.S.C. § 7266(a) to file an appeal had elapsed. Mr. Toomer filed his notice of appeal on October 28, 2009, 85 days after the VA mailed the copy of the Board’s decision to him and, thus, within 120 days of TOOMER v. MCDONALD 3 the date on the first page of the package containing the copy of the decision, August 4, 2009. Because there are no material facts in dispute in this case, the question of equitable tolling is one we can, and here must, review. See Bailey, 351 F.3d 1384. Such review would not involve improper reweighing of facts and is properly within the powers of this court.