Opinion ID: 770829
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: jurisdiction

Text: 8 On August 31, 1999, the Veterans Court affirmed the BVA's denial of Elkins' claim for headaches as not well grounded, dismissed his newly asserted claim for neck injuries for lack of jurisdiction, and remanded his previously denied back injury claim to the BVA for further proceedings because of new and material evidence. The first two decisions are challenged in this appeal. A threshold question in this case is whether this court has jurisdiction to hear Elkins' appeal when the Veterans Court has rendered a final decision with respect to only two of the three issues or claims presented to it by Elkins in an appeal from a single Board decision. Although upon our request for supplemental briefing on this issue both parties agreed we do have jurisdiction, our independent analysis is still required. 9 A. The jurisdiction of this court over appeals from the Veterans Court is governed by 38 U.S.C. 7292, which provides in relevant part that [a]fter a decision of the United States Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims is entered in a case, any party to the case may obtain a review of the decision. 38 U.S.C. 7292. This jurisdictional provision leaves open the question of whether the Veterans Court must render a final decision disposing of all the claims or issues presented to it before we may exercise appellate jurisdiction. 10 Had Elkins appealed a similar decision to us from a district court, there would be little question that we would lack jurisdiction. Under the final judgment rule, a party may not appeal district court rulings until the trial court has rendered a decision that 'ends the litigation on the merits and leaves nothing for the court to do but execute the judgment.' Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. v. Risjord, 449 U.S. 368, 373 (1981) (quoting Coopers & Lybrand v. Livesay, 437 U.S. 463, 467 (1945)). In appeals from district court rulings, all claims for relief must be resolved before an appeal on any claim may be taken. See id.; see also Fed. R. Civ. P. 54(b) (providing that, in the absence of an express determination by a district court, when more than one claim for relief is presented in an action, the parties shall not terminate the action prior to the entry of judgment adjudicating all the claims and the rights and liabilities of all the parties). The final judgment rule serves a number of important purposes, including minimizing appellate court interference with lower court proceedings and promoting efficient judicial administration. See Firestone, 449 U.S. at 374. The collateral order doctrine, not applicable here, is an exception to this general rule. 11 B. This court has recognized, however, that there is not always precise congruence between 'the classical jurisdictional requirements' applied to appeals from district courts and the jurisdictional standards applicable to review of administrative proceedings. Dewey Electronics Corp. v. United States, 803 F.2d 650, 654 (Fed. Cir. 1986). The relevant consideration, in determining whether an administrative adjudication is sufficiently final is 'whether the process of the administrative decisionmaking has reached a stage where judicial review will not disrupt the orderly process of adjudication and whether rights or obligations have been determined or legal consequences will flow from the agency action.' Id. (quoting Port of Boston Marine Terminal Ass'n v. Rederiaktiebolaget Transatlantic, 400 U.S. 62, 71 (1970)). 12 This court has held, when reviewing decisions of agency boards of contract appeals, that a litigant's individual claims for relief may, in certain circumstances, be separable for purposes of appellate review. See Dewey, 803 F.2d at 653-54; see also Kinetic Builder's Inc. v. F. Whitten Peters, 226 F.3d 1307, 1312(Fed. Cir. Sept. 25, 2000); Orlando Helicopter Airways, Inc. v. Widnall, 51 F.3d 258, 261 (Fed. Cir. 1995). In Dewey, the contracting officer had constructively denied liability on what were deemed to be nine separate claims by failing to consider and act on them in a timely manner. The disallowed claims were then appealed to the Armed Services Board of Contract Appeals (ASBCA), which rendered its decision sustaining the disallowance as to four claims and determining that the government was liable on the other five, which were remanded to determine the amount of the government's liability. Dewey then appealed to this court from the ASBCA's decision as to the four disallowed claims. We held that the ASBCA's decision was final as to the four claims appealed and that the appeal should not be deferred pending resolution of quantum for the five claims remanded. See Dewey, 803 F.2d at 653-54. We reasoned that applying a rigid concept of finality would reduce the efficiency and flexibility generally associated with administrative proceedings, see id. at 656, and that such an approach would contravene the legislative intent of Congress in enacting the Contract Disputes Act, which was designed 'to provide a swift, inexpensive method of resolving contract disputes.' Id. at 655 (quoting S. Rep. No. 1118, 95th Cong., 2d Sess., reprinted in 1978 U.S.C.C.A.N. 5235, 5246). 13 Subsequent cases have reaffirmed that Dewey is to be applied only when the exercise of our jurisdiction will not disrupt the orderly process of adjudication of the administrative tribunal. Orlando Helicopter, 51 F.3d at 261 (quoting Port of Boston Marine Terminal Ass'n, 400 U.S. at 71) (exercising jurisdiction over ASBCA decision that denied recovery of costs under the sovereign acts doctrine, noting that, although the ASBCA had withheld ruling on costs incurred under stop work order, the sovereign acts defense is an issue wholly separate and distinct from any issues which may remain before the board); Kinetic Builder's, 226 F.3d at 1313-14 (We think the better rule is that where separate claims by definition focus on a different or unrelated set of operative facts, and where issues of both liability and quantum have been assumed and determined, the decision of the Board as to the non-remanded claims is to be deemed final for the purpose of conferring appellate jurisdiction on this court.). 14 C. We have sub silentio applied the methodology of Dewey in appeals from the Veterans Court. In Grantham v. Brown, 114 F.3d 1156 (Fed. Cir. 1997), a veteran had presented two claims for benefits to the Veterans Court: a left eye disability claim and a pension claim. The Veterans Court remanded the pension claim for additional proceedings and dismissed Grantham's left eye claim for lack of jurisdiction. See Grantham v. Brown, 8 Vet. App. 228 (1995). We noted that the Veterans Court's decision was non-final with respect to Grantham's remanded pension claim, and we found that we lacked jurisdiction over that portion of Grantham's appeal. See Grantham, 114 F.3d at 1159. We proceeded to exercise jurisdiction, however, over Grantham's appeal of the dismissal of his left eye claim. See id. at 1158. Although we did not expressly confront the issue as to whether the Veterans Court's decision was final for the purposes of the final judgment rule, or whether the claims were separable on appeal, our decision to exercise jurisdiction over his left eye claim is illustrative of our court's practice of treating a veteran's distinct claims as separable on appeal. 15 This court has consistently recognized that the various claims of a veteran's overall case may be treated as distinct for jurisdictional purposes. In Maggitt v. West, 202 F.3d 1370, 1376 (Fed. Cir. 2000), we held that a decision of the BVA, for the purposes of the Veterans Court's jurisdiction, is the decision with respect to the particular benefit request sought by the veteran, and thus that the Veterans Court had jurisdiction to hear new arguments raised by a veteran on appeal, so long as they related to the particular claim for benefits that was adjudicated by the BVA. Similarly, in Ledford v. West, 136 F.3d 776, 779 (Fed. Cir. 1998), we held that a veteran's claims relating to the termination of his individual unemployability benefits had to be litigated separately from his claims regarding the propriety of the effective date of his benefits, as the BVA's decision only related to the latter claim. Moreover, in Grantham, 114 F.3d at 1158, we recognized that even the different elements of a single claim might necessarily be litigated separately, and thus that the Veterans Court had jurisdiction to consider a veteran's appeal of an adverse decision relating to the compensation level for his left eye disorder (one element of his claim), even though the veteran's appeal of a decision relating to service-connectedness of the same disorder (another element of his claim) was untimely. And, in Barrera v. Gober, 122 F.3d 1030, 1032 (Fed. Cir. 1997), we recognized that a veteran's overall claim, or case, for benefits is comprised of separate issues, and that the Court of Veterans Appeals has jurisdiction to consider an appeal concerning one or more of those issues, provided an NOD has been filed after the effective date of the Veterans Judicial Review Act with regard to the particular issue. In that case, we ruled that although a veteran may have filed a pre-Act NOD with respect to a particular issue, the Veterans Court may still exercise jurisdiction over a different issue on which an NOD has been filed after the effective date of the Act. See id. 16 D. Our decisions are consistent with the approach adopted by the Veterans Court in treating a veteran's different claims as separately appealable matters. See Hamilton v. Brown, 4 Vet. App. 528, 544 (1993) (holding that a veteran's claims for osteoporosis, osteomyelitis, and premature aging, which remained pending before the RO during appeal of additional claims, could be separately appealed after the filing of a subsequent NOD); Ryan v. Derwinski, 2 Vet. App. 568, 569-70 (1992) (exercising jurisdiction over one of a veteran's claims, although a closely related claim was still pending before the RO). Although not binding on us, these decisions are instructive of the manner in which a veteran's separate claims may be appealed sequentially. 17 E. Our decisions reflect a fundamental difference in the structure of a single case between veterans litigation and district court proceedings. In a district court, a plaintiff must present all claims for relief arising from an event in a single complaint, and these claims are handled as integral parts of a single case. Except in limited circumstances, they must be tried together and appealed all at once. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 54(b). As the above decisions represent, however, there is no requirement that a veteran's various claims for relief be simultaneously filed and adjudicated, either upon initial review or on appeal. Rather, we have recognized that the unique statutory process of adjudication through which veterans seek benefits may necessarily require that the different issues or claims of a case be resolved at different times, both by the agency of original jurisdiction and on appeal. 18 It appears that Elkins would have been free to pursue his claims and arguments regarding his back, neck, and headache conditions separately and sequentially, and that he could have appealed each to the Veterans Court, and subsequently to this court, as a separate case. Elkins, however, presented his claims to the Veterans Court in a single appeal. We must decide whether Elkins is thereby foreclosed from obtaining review in this court as to his headache claim and neck argument due to the fact that his back claim, which was simultaneously pending before the Veterans Court, has been remanded. 19 Although all three of Elkins' claims relate to the same accident, we note that the legal issues presented on appeal to the Veterans Court were all distinct (i.e., whether Elkins has presented new and material evidence sufficient to reopen his 1953 claim for back injuries, whether he has presented a well grounded claim for headaches, and whether the medical reports furnished with his headache claim support a claim for neck injuries). Because Elkins' headache claim and neck argument do not appear to be intertwined with his back claim, it appears that our review of the Veterans Court's decision with respect to these two matters will not disrupt the orderly process of adjudication below with respect to the remanded claim. Port of Boston Marine Terminal Ass'n, 400 U.S. at 71; see also Harris v. Derwinski, 1 Vet. App. 180, 183 (1991) (refusing to exercise jurisdiction over veteran's claim for anxiety neurosis because that claim was inextricably intertwined with a heart disorder claim that remained undecided and pending below). Under the approach we have adopted in Dewey, we may treat Elkins' individual claims as separable on appeal. 20 Our methodology in Dewey for contract cases applies with even greater force to veterans cases. Because, as we noted above, each particular claim for benefits may be treated as distinct for jurisdictional purposes, Maggitt, 202 F.3d at 1376, a veteran's claims may be treated as separable on appeal. In those cases, such as the one at bar, where a veteran has packaged all his claims in a single appeal to the Veterans Court, it would be unfair to deny the veteran an immediate appeal of a final decision as to one or more of his claims simply because an additional claim is remanded for further proceedings. To require a final decision with respect to all claims raised at the Veterans Court may have the unintended and perverse effect of encouraging veterans to file separately their various claims for relief, in order to secure an immediate appeal to this court. 21 We acknowledge that allowing separate appeals of the various claims asserted by a veteran may lead to less efficient use of judicial resources. Such a result, however, is inevitable given the pro-claimant, nonadversarial, ex parte system that supplies veterans benefits. See Maggitt, 202 F.3d at 1377. Because veterans' claims are often prepared and litigated pro se, and because they are never finally decided but are always subject to re-opening, the court cannot fairly mandate that all claims for relief be incorporated in a single document, as is required in a district court complaint. 22 Our conclusion, moreover, advances the goal of timely providing benefits to disabled veterans. In meritorious cases where the Veterans Court's interpretation of a statute or regulation would preclude an award of benefits on a particular claim, a veteran might otherwise have to wait years before all his or her claims are fully adjudicated and thus appealable to this court. Although the monetary amount that may ultimately be awarded will date back to the original effective date of the claim (normally the filing date of the claim), a veteran who depends on an award as a substitute for lost wages will be seriously harmed during the delay. 23 F. The dissent argues that 38 U.S.C. 7292(b), which permits the Veterans Court to certify questions of law for interlocutory appeal to this court, forecloses other mechanisms for appealing decisions of the Veterans Court that do not render final decisions as to all claims pending before that court in a single appeal. 38 U.S.C. 7292(b). Whether section 7292(b) provides the sole avenue for appealing a non-final decision of the Veterans Court is a question we need not decide today. We hold only that the Veterans Court's remand of Elkins' back claim does not negate the undeniable finality of its decisions regarding Elkins' neck argument and headache claim. Because we are only asked to exercise jurisdiction over a final decision on two matters, section 7292(b) does not apply. Section 7292(b) simply contains no implication for the separate appealability of simultaneously adjudicated claims where the Veterans Court decision is admittedly final as to the appealed claims. Nor, contrary to the dissent, does such an interpretation render section 7292(b) superfluous. Consider the case of a one-claim appeal that is remanded for factual development but contains a statutory interpretation that will likely determine the outcome. In such a case, section 7292(b) allows an appeal of the interpretation even though no final decision has been made on the claim. 24 We agree with the dissent that, had Elkins presented a single claim to the Veterans Court, and had that court remanded the claim for further proceedings, then the Veterans Court's decision would ordinarily not have been final and appealable. In this case, however, we hold that the Veterans Court's decision is unquestionably final with respect to Elkins' neck argument and headache claim, and that these matters are separable from Elkins' back claim for purposes of this appeal. We conclude that we may exercise jurisdiction over Elkins' neck argument and headache claim, notwithstanding the Veterans Court's remand of Elkins' back claim.