Court Opinion

ID: 9392838
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-05-08 14:00:41.198975+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:18:49.292560
License: Public Domain

Case: 23-1368    Document: 14     Page: 1    Filed: 05/08/2023

        NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.

   United States Court of Appeals
       for the Federal Circuit
                  ______________________

                     ERMON DAVIS,
                    Claimant-Appellant

                             v.

       DENIS MCDONOUGH, SECRETARY OF
              VETERANS AFFAIRS,
               Respondent-Appellee
              ______________________

                        2023-1368
                  ______________________

    Appeal from the United States Court of Appeals for
 Veterans Claims in No. 21-3919, Judge Scott Laurer.
                 ______________________

                   Decided: May 8, 2023
                  ______________________

    ERMON DAVIS, Richton Park, IL, pro se.

      MATTHEW JUDE CARHART, Commercial Litigation
 Branch, Civil Division, United States Department of Jus-
 tice, Washington, DC, for respondent-appellee. Also repre-
 sented by BRIAN M. BOYNTON, TARA K. HOGAN, PATRICIA M.
 MCCARTHY; BRIAN D. GRIFFIN, ANDREW J. STEINBERG, Of-
 fice of General Counsel, United States Department of Vet-
 erans Affairs, Washington, DC.
                   ______________________
Case: 23-1368     Document: 14    Page: 2    Filed: 05/08/2023

 2                                      DAVIS   v. MCDONOUGH

     Before PROST, LINN, and CUNNINGHAM, Circuit Judges.
 PER CURIAM.
     Ermon Davis appeals a decision of the Court of Appeals
 for Veterans Claims (“Veterans Court”) dismissing his ap-
 peal for lack of jurisdiction. Because the Veterans Court
 properly determined that it lacked jurisdiction, we affirm.
                        BACKGROUND
     Mr. Davis filed a service-connection claim for bilateral
 hearing loss in 2006. In 2017, Congress enacted the Veter-
 ans Appeals Improvement and Modernization Act (“AMA”),
 which allows veterans like Mr. Davis to opt into a new kind
 of review system that gives veterans more options for ap-
 pealing a determination by a regional office. See Veterans
 Appeals Improvement and Modernization Act of 2017, Pub.
 L. No. 115-55, sec. 2(x)(5), 131 Stat. 1105, 1115. Veterans
 like Mr. Davis can, for example, opt in “by filing for a re-
 view option under the new system . . . on a form prescribed
 by the Secretary” of the Department of Veterans Affairs.
 38 C.F.R. § 3.2400(c)(2). The form used to appeal to the
 Board of Veterans’ Appeals (“Board”) through the AMA
 system is called “VA Form 10182.” See App’x 32. 1
     In June 2019, Mr. Davis filed a VA Form 10182 indi-
 cating that he wanted to appeal his “[e]ntitlement to ser-
 vice connection for bilateral hearing loss” and sought a
 Board hearing and the opportunity to submit additional ev-
 idence. App’x 32. However, in October 2019, the Board
 issued a remand under the pre-AMA system for further fac-
 tual development, and it did not provide Mr. Davis with a
 hearing. See App’x 6–7. The Board then vacated that re-
 mand in a March 2021 order because it determined that
 Mr. Davis had opted into the AMA system and that he was

      1   “App’x” refers to the appendix attached to Appel-
 lee’s informal brief.
Case: 23-1368     Document: 14     Page: 3   Filed: 05/08/2023

 DAVIS   v. MCDONOUGH                                      3

 “denied due process of law when his request [for a Board
 hearing] remained unfulfilled.” App’x 7.
     Mr. Davis appealed the Board’s March 2021 order to
 the Veterans Court. App’x 4. The Veterans Court dis-
 missed that appeal for lack of jurisdiction. App’x 5.
 Mr. Davis appeals that dismissal to this court, and we have
 jurisdiction under 38 U.S.C. § 7292.
                        DISCUSSION
     On appeal, Mr. Davis challenges the Veterans Court’s
 determination that it lacked jurisdiction. See Appellant’s
 Informal Br. 4–6. “The jurisdictional reach of the Veterans
 Court presents a question of law for our plenary review.”
 Maggitt v. West, 202 F.3d 1370, 1374 (Fed. Cir. 2000).
      The Veterans Court properly determined that it lacked
 jurisdiction over Mr. Davis’s appeal. Section 7252(a) of ti-
 tle 38 grants the Veterans Court “exclusive jurisdiction to
 review decisions of the [Board].” 38 U.S.C. § 7252(a) (em-
 phasis added). “A ‘decision’ of the Board, for purposes of
 the Veterans Court’s jurisdiction under [§] 7252, is the de-
 cision with respect to the benefit sought by the veteran:
 those benefits are either granted . . . or they are denied.”
 Maggitt, 202 F.3d at 1376. The Board’s March 2021 order
 neither granted nor denied Mr. Davis benefits—that order
 merely vacated a prior Board remand so that Mr. Davis’s
 bilateral hearing claim could proceed through the AMA
 system that Mr. Davis elected. Accordingly, the Veterans
 Court lacked jurisdiction.
                        CONCLUSION
      We have considered Mr. Davis’s remaining arguments
 and find them unpersuasive. For the foregoing reasons, we
 affirm.
                        AFFIRMED
                           COSTS
 No costs.