Opinion ID: 799396
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: jurisdiction

Text: The jurisdictional question is a complex and close one, but we conclude that we have jurisdiction over these claims. As we have discussed, we lack jurisdiction either if § 511 prohibits our jurisdiction, or if review of VCS's claim is entrusted to the exclusive review mechanism established by the VJRA. We first hold that § 511 does not bar our jurisdiction to consider this claim. We then conclude that VCS's claim does not fall within the exclusive jurisdiction of the Veterans Court or the Federal Circuit. First, VCS has carefully structured its complaint to avoid § 511's preclusive effect. As pled, VCS asserts a facial challenge to the constitutionality of the VJRA based not on any average delays experienced by veterans, but on the absence in the statute of certain procedures VCS claims are necessary to safeguard veterans' rights. Were the former 38 U.S.C. § 211 applicable here, there is little doubt that we would have jurisdiction to hear this claim because the Supreme Court held that facial constitutional challenges were exempted from § 211's jurisdictional preclusion. See Robison, 415 U.S. at 366-74, 94 S.Ct. 1160. But since the enactment of the VJRA, the courts of appeals appear split on the issue of whether that portion of Robison 's analysis survives the VJRA. We question, however, whether these courts have thoroughly analyzed the efforts Congress undertook to broaden § 511 and the concurrent effort it took to establish an exclusive review scheme for claims related to veterans' benefits. The Second and Fifth Circuits, as well as the Veterans Court, have affirmed that facial constitutional challenges to acts of Congressincluding challenges brought by individual claimantsmay be brought in federal district court despite § 511's broad preclusive mandate. See, e.g., Zuspann, 60 F.3d at 1159 (addressing whether the claimant's complaint challenges the VA's decision to deny him benefits, or whether it makes a facial challenge to an act of Congress); Larrabee ex rel. Jones, 968 F.2d at 1500 (the VJRA precludes judicial review of non-facial constitutional claims); Disabled Am. Veterans, 962 F.2d at 141 (same); Dacoron v. Brown, 4 Vet.App. 115, 119 (1993). The Eighth Circuit appears to have taken a different view. See Hicks, 961 F.2d at 1369-70 (concluding that provisions of the VJRA amply evince Congress's intent to include all issues, even constitutional ones, necessary to a decision which affects benefits in [an] exclusive appellate review scheme); see also Hall, 85 F.3d at 534-35 (recognizing that [t]he Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals appears to have taken a different view as to whether Robison 's preservation of facial constitutional challenges survives the VJRA). And in the case most analogous to the claims presented here, Beamon v. Brown , the Sixth Circuit appears to have equivocated on the matter, holding that district court jurisdiction over facial challenges to acts of Congress survived [§ 511], 125 F.3d at 972, yet concluding that Congress ... effectively stripp[ed] district courts of any such jurisdiction over constitutional attacks on the operation of the claims system, id. at 973 n. 4 (internal quotation marks omitted). Beamon, however, involved a putative class action brought by three veterans challenging delays in the processing of veterans' benefits, id. at 966, and the Sixth Circuit concluded that the plaintiffs' own claims could be brought in the Veterans Court, id. at 972-74. Ultimately, we need not decide whether an individual seeking benefits would be barred by § 511 from bringing a facial constitutional challenge in the district court. The immediate question before us is whether VCS's challenge to the VJRA is similar to its claims challenging the conduct of the VHA and the delays in adjudication of service-related disability claims, which we have already concluded would require review of the circumstances of individual requests for benefits by veterans. Unlike those previous claims, reviewing the VA's procedures for filing and handling benefits claims at the Regional Offices does not require us to review decisions affecting the provision of benefits to any individual claimants. 38 U.S.C. § 511; see also id. § 5104 (requiring notice to a veteran of a decision by the Secretary under section 511 of this title affecting the provision of benefits to a claimant). Indeed, VCS does not challenge decisions at all. A consideration of the constitutionality of the procedures in place, which frame the system by which a veteran presents his claims to the VA, is different than a consideration of the decisions that emanate through the course of the presentation of those claims. In this respect, VCS does not ask us to review the decisions of the VA in the cases of individual veterans, but to consider, in the generality of cases, the risk of erroneous deprivation inherent in the existing procedures compared to the probable value of the additional procedures requested by VCS. See Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319, 344, 96 S.Ct. 893, 47 L.Ed.2d 18 (1976). Evaluating under the Due Process Clause the need for subpoena power, the ability to obtain discovery, or any of the other procedures VCS requests is sufficiently independent of any VA decision as to an individual veteran's claim for benefits that § 511 does not bar our jurisdiction. [25] Second, unlike VCS's challenge to delays in the administration of the benefits program, the exclusive review scheme established by the VJRA in 38 U.S.C. §§ 7252, 7261, and 7292 does not deprive us of jurisdiction over this claim. Although an individual veteran may challenge VA procedures during the adjudication of individual claims contesting delayed benefits decisions, Beamon, 125 F.3d at 969, in the Veterans Court or the Federal Circuit, the VJRA does not provide a mechanism by which the organizational plaintiffs here might challenge the absence of system-wide procedures, which they contend are necessary to afford due process. This case does not involve individual veterans seeking to challenge the lack of procedures in place at VA Regional Offices, but rather organizations representing their members claiming a system-wide risk of erroneous deprivation. See Dacoron, 4 Vet.App. at 119 (noting that constitutional challenges could be presented to this Court only in the context of a proper and timely appeal taken from such decision made by the VA Secretary through the [Board]). In other words, because VCS cannot bring its suit in the Veterans Court, that court cannot claim exclusive jurisdiction over the suit. Because VCS would be unable to assert its claim in the review scheme established by the VJRA, see 38 U.S.C. §§ 7252, 7261, 7292, that scheme does not operate to divest us of jurisdiction. [26] We conclude that we have jurisdiction over VCS's claim related to procedures affecting adjudication of claims at the Regional Office level. We are not precluded from exercising jurisdiction by either § 511 or the provisions conferring exclusive jurisdiction on the Veterans Court and the Federal Circuit.