Court Opinion

ID: 9403539
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-06-21 15:02:41.029476+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:20:07.891750
License: Public Domain

Case: 22-1000    Document: 35     Page: 1   Filed: 06/12/2023

        NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.

   United States Court of Appeals
       for the Federal Circuit
                  ______________________

                 AZUCENA P. OVALLE,
                   Claimant-Appellant

                             v.

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

                        2022-1000
                  ______________________

     Appeal from the United States Court of Appeals for
 Veterans Claims in No. 19-2989, Judge Joseph L. Falvey,
 Jr.
                 ______________________

                  Decided: June 12, 2023
                  ______________________

    AZUCENA P. OVALLE, Brownsville, TX, pro se.

     SEAN KELLY GRIFFIN, Commercial Litigation Branch,
 Civil Division, United States Department of Justice, Wash-
 ington, DC, for respondent-appellee. Also represented by
 BRIAN M. BOYNTON, CLAUDIA BURKE, PATRICIA M.
 MCCARTHY; AMANDA BLACKMON, Y. KEN LEE, Office of Gen-
 eral Counsel, United States Department of Veterans Af-
 fairs, Washington, DC.
Case: 22-1000      Document: 35    Page: 2   Filed: 06/12/2023

 2                                     OVALLE   v. MCDONOUGH

                    ______________________

         Before DYK, BRYSON, and STARK, Circuit Judges.
 PER CURIAM.
     Azucena P. Ovalle appeals a decision of the Court of
 Appeals for Veterans Claims (“Veterans Court”). The Vet-
 erans Court affirmed a Board of Veterans’ Appeals
 (“Board”) decision denying service connection for the cause
 of death of veteran, Jose P. Ovalle. Ovalle v. Tran,
 No. 19-2989 (Vet. App. Jan. 25, 2021). Because Ms. Ovalle
 does not raise a colorable legal challenge to the Veterans
 Court decision, we dismiss.
                         BACKGROUND
     Mr. Ovalle served in the U.S. Army from June 1958 to
 May 1960. He died on March 19, 2007. The death certifi-
 cate lists the cause of Mr. Ovalle’s death as “Respiratory
 Failure, Hepatic Cirrhosis, Portal Hypertension, Arterial
 Hypertension[, and] Part II Prostrate Hypertrophy.”
 S.A. 106. At the time of his death, the Department of Vet-
 erans Affairs (“VA”) had not determined he had a service-
 connected disability, nor did he have any pending claims
 before the VA.
       Following Mr. Ovalle’s death, in December 2007,
 Ms. Ovalle 1 filed a claim for service-connected death bene-
 fits. 2 Ms. Ovalle claims that Mr. Ovalle suffered from

     1   The Veterans Court noted that there is conflicting
 evidence as to whether Ms. Ovalle is in fact Mr. Ovalle’s
 surviving spouse. The VA has not challenged Ms. Ovalle’s
 status as Mr. Ovalle’s surviving spouse, and, other than
 noting the discrepancy in the evidence, the Veterans Court
 did not address the issue.
     2   Ms. Ovalle also filed other claims which were de-
 nied, raising issues not relevant to this appeal.
Case: 22-1000     Document: 35     Page: 3    Filed: 06/12/2023

 OVALLE   v. MCDONOUGH                                       3

 psychiatric trauma from an injury sustained during com-
 bat that supposedly took place in Germany in 1958.
 Ms. Ovalle claims this psychiatric trauma led to his death
 from heart disease or organ failure.
     The VA regional office (RO) denied Ms. Ovalle’s claim.
 She appealed to the Board. In September 2018, after sev-
 eral remands, the Board upheld the denial of Ms. Ovalle’s
 claim.
      Ms. Ovalle appealed the Board decision to the Veterans
 Court, which in January 2021 affirmed the Board decision.
 The Veterans Court liberally construed Ms. Ovalle’s appeal
 to assert (1) that the Board disregarded her lay testimony
 regarding Mr. Ovalle’s medical conditions, and (2) that the
 VA violated its duty to assist and due process by failing to
 provide her materials in Spanish and by failing to assist
 her in obtaining Mr. Ovalle’s service records. The Veterans
 Court rejected her arguments and affirmed the Board’s de-
 cision. Ms. Ovalle appeals.
                         DISCUSSION
      Under 38 U.S.C. § 7292, we may review decisions of the
 Veterans Court only for a challenge to the validity or inter-
 pretation of a statute or regulation, or on constitutional
 grounds. Absent a constitutional issue, we lack jurisdiction
 to review “(A) a challenge to a factual determination, or
 (B) a challenge to a law or regulation as applied to the facts
 of a particular case.” 38 U.S.C. § 7292(d)(2); see Wanless v.
 Shinseki, 618 F.3d 1333, 1336 (Fed. Cir. 2010).
     In her informal brief, Ms. Ovalle contends, as she did
 before the Veterans Court, that the Board failed to credit
 lay evidence of Mr. Ovalle’s psychiatric symptoms and
 that, based on the evidence, the Board should have decided
 her case differently. We lack jurisdiction to review the fac-
 tual findings made by the Board and affirmed by the Vet-
 erans Court.
Case: 22-1000     Document: 35      Page: 4   Filed: 06/12/2023

 4                                      OVALLE   v. MCDONOUGH

     Ms. Ovalle contends that the VA violated the duty to
 assist by refusing to provide her materials in Spanish and
 refusing to assist in obtaining Mr. Ovalle’s service records.
 But, as the Veterans Court noted, Ms. Ovalle did not cite
 anything in the record indicating that she had informed the
 VA of her difficulty understanding English, and through-
 out the pendency of Ms. Ovalle’s claim adjudication, she
 represented herself in English without apparent difficulty.
 As for Mr. Ovalle’s service records, as the Veterans Court
 noted, the VA had in fact assisted Ms. Ovalle in trying to
 locate records, and “the reason Ms. Ovalle did not have
 those records was because they do not exist, not because
 VA failed in its statutory duty to provide them.” S.A. 11.
 There was no colorable argument that the VA violated its
 statutory duty to assist, nor does Ms. Ovalle establish a col-
 orable due process violation.
    We have considered Ms. Ovalle’s remaining arguments
 and find them unpersuasive.
     Because Ms. Ovalle raises no colorable claim of legal
 error, we dismiss.
                        DISMISSED
                            COSTS
 No costs.