Opinion ID: 210362
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Sufficiency of the March 2001 Letter

Text: We first hold that Mayfield's challenge to the Veterans Court's holding that the March 2001 communication satisfied the VA's notification obligations under the VCAA presents a question of fact that we cannot disturb on appeal under 38 U.S.C. § 7292(d)(2). Mayfield attempts to circumvent the statutory restrictions on our Veterans Court jurisdiction by characterizing this issue as a question of law  specifically, the statutory interpretation of 38 U.S.C. § 5103(a). Essentially, Mayfield asserts that the March 2001 letter cannot be in compliance with the plain language of § 5103(a) because in the letter she was told that she was to submit any additional evidence that supported her claim, whereas under the statute, the Secretary is required to notify her of any information, and any medical or lay evidence, not previously provided to the Secretary that is necessary to substantiate [her] claim. The problem with Mayfield's argument, however, is that we have previously clearly held in this case that the question of whether the language utilized by the VA in its March 2001 communication to Mayfield satisfies the Secretary's obligations under the plain language of § 5103(a) is one of fact. In Mayfield II we stated that the question of whether the March 2001 letter satisfied the statutory and regulatory notification requirements [of the VCAA] was a substantially factual determination of the type that should have been made by the agency in the first instance. 444 F.3d at 1335 (emphasis added). While Mayfield blithely contends that, by challenging the content of the March 2001 letter, she is actually asking this court to interpret § 5103(a) according to its plain and unambiguous language, one might question whether the outcome of Mayfield II would have been the same but for our conclusion that the Veterans Court improperly bypassed the fact-finding role of the Board. Specifically, in Mayfield II, we reversed the Veterans Court's decision that the March 2001 communication satisfied the notice requirements of the VCAA because the Board did not address this factual question in the first place, and remanded for further proceedings so that the question of whether Mrs. Mayfield received appropriate notice . . . [could] be addressed by the agency in the first instance, under the proper legal standard. Mayfield II, 444 F.3d at 1336. We explained that [t]he factual character of that inquiry is borne out by prior decisions of the Veterans Court, which have consistently treated the question of whether a particular notice is sufficient to satisfy the notification requirements of section 5103 as factual, id. at 1335, and further found that our conclusion was supported by comments made by the VA in implementing its regulations accompanying the VCAA that `the content of VA's notice to the claimant depends on the amount of information and evidence VA already has regarding an individual claim, and cannot precisely be defined by regulation,' id. (quoting 66 Fed.Reg. 45620, 45622). Our recent decision in Garrison v. Nicholson, 494 F.3d 1366 (Fed.Cir.2007), finding that the Veterans Court correctly applied the clearly erroneous standard when reviewing a Board's finding that the VA complied with the notice provisions of § 5103(a), is in accord. In sum, then, we are not persuaded by Mayfield's effort to refashion this issue as a question of law. For this reason, we dismiss Mayfield's first assertion of error as outside our statutory jurisdiction.