Opinion ID: 4552769
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: September 2017 Rating Decision

Text: On appeal, Mr. Hinton argues that the Veterans Court erroneously declined to consider whether he is entitled to a disability rating higher than the 30% rating granted in the September 2017 RO decision. Mr. Hinton does not deny that he failed to submit a NOD to that decision on VA Form 21-0958 within the one-year time limit. Instead, we broadly construe Mr. Hinton’s pleadings to present two arguments for why he properly appealed the 30% rating. First, we read Mr. Hinton’s appeal as asserting that his properly filed NOD to the August 2013 decision, which appealed the denial of service connection for his PTSD claim, should be construed to have also initiated appellate review Case: 20-1532 Document: 17 Page: 7 Filed: 08/03/2020 HINTON v. WILKIE 7 of the 30% rating granted in the September 2017 decision. Alternatively, Mr. Hinton appears to argue that his November 2017 VA Form 9 should be construed as a proper NOD to the 30% rating because it is a written communication expressing dissatisfaction with the September 2017 decision. We find neither argument persuasive. First, we conclude that Mr. Hinton’s NOD appealing the denial of service connection for his PTSD claim cannot also initiate appellate review of the 30% rating assigned to his service-connected psychiatric disorder. A veteran’s overall claim for benefits comprises multiple separate elements, and the agency’s “first decision regarding a claim for benefits might not resolve, or even address, all necessary elements of the application for benefits.” See Grantham v. Brown, 114 F.3d 1156, 1158 (Fed. Cir. 1997). In Grantham, we held that a NOD appealing “the logically upstream element of service-connectedness” from an initial RO decision “[cannot] concern the logically down-stream element of compensation level,” which was addressed, for the first time, in a subsequent RO decision. Id. at 1158–59. Here, with respect to Mr. Hinton’s PTSD claim, the August 2013 NOD appealed only the denial of service connection for that claim. On the NOD form, under “Area of Disagreement,” Mr. Hinton checked only the box labeled “Service Connection.” R. 655–56. That form also included a box for appealing “Evaluation of Disability” and a space for indicating the “Percentage (%) Evaluation Sought,” which Mr. Hinton did not fill out. Id. Thus, the appeal initiated by the August 2013 NOD concerned only the issue of serviceconnectedness for a claimed psychiatric disorder and not the “logically down-stream” issue of rating level, which the RO ruled on, for the first time, in the September 2017 decision. We therefore conclude that the August 2013 NOD did not initiate appellate review of the 30% rating granted in the September 2017 decision. We also conclude that the November 2017 VA Form 9 did not constitute a proper NOD for initiating and Case: 20-1532 Document: 17 Page: 8 Filed: 08/03/2020 8 HINTON v. WILKIE preserving an appeal. Since March 24, 2015, the VA’s regulations have required all appeals to originate on a standard form provided with the rating decision—in this case, VA Form 21-0958. 38 C.F.R. § 20.201(a)(1) (2015). 6 The VA “will not accept as a [NOD] an expression of dissatisfaction or disagreement with an adjudicative determination by the agency . . . and a desire to contest the result that is submitted in any other format, including on a different VA form.” Id. (emphasis added). To the extent Mr. Hinton challenges the validity of the standard form requirement, we note that the amended regulations were upheld, over rulemaking challenge, in Veterans Justice Group, LLC v. Sec’y of Veterans Affairs, 818 F.3d 1336 (Fed. Cir. 2016). There, we held that the VA neither exceeded its authority nor acted arbitrarily by requiring NODs to be completed on standard forms—a requirement we found to be rationally related to the efficient adjudication of veterans’ appeals. Id. at 1352–54. As with appeals, the amended regulations also require new claims to be initiated on standard forms. See id. at 1342–43 (explaining that the prior “informal claim” framework was replaced by the “intent to file a claim” framework, which requires a claimant to perfect a new claim by filing a “standard application form” within one year), 1350– 52 (upholding the validity of the “intent to file a claim” framework); see also 38 C.F.R. § 3.155(b). Recently, we have denied benefits under the “intent to file a claim” framework for failure to timely file a formal claim using the standard application form. See Merritt v. Wilkie, No. 20191095, 2020 WL 4032812, at  (Fed. Cir. July 17, 2020) (dismissing appeal as moot because claimant “did not preserve her claim for accrued benefits by filing a formal claim within [the relevant time limit]”). Likewise, here, the amended regulations require us to conclude that an appeal 6 Now codified at 38 C.F.R. § 20.202(d). Case: 20-1532 Document: 17 Page: 9 Filed: 08/03/2020 HINTON v. WILKIE 9 has not been properly initiated absent timely filing of the prescribed standard form. The amended regulations were in force during the oneyear period for initiating appeal of the September 2017 rating decision. That rating decision enclosed a copy of VA Form 21-0958 and expressly instructed Mr. Hinton that he “must complete and return to [the VA] the enclosed VA Form 21-0958 . . . in order to initiate [his] appeal” within one year. R. 90. In addition, Mr. Hinton was advised by both the Board and the Chairman of the Board, prior to the expiration of that one-year deadline, that he must submit VA Form 21-0958 to properly initiate an appeal of the 30% disability rating. Yet Mr. Hinton did not do so. Given the absence of a timely filed VA Form 21-0958, we affirm the Veterans Court’s decision not to review the September 2017 rating decision because that decision was never properly appealed to the Board.