Court Opinion

ID: 9956894
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-04-03 14:00:53.928301+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:17:58.012958
License: Public Domain

Case: 23-1548    Document: 74     Page: 1   Filed: 04/03/2024

        NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.

   United States Court of Appeals
       for the Federal Circuit
                  ______________________

                  EUGENE W. JAROG,
                   Claimant-Appellant

                             v.

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

                        2023-1548
                  ______________________

    Appeal from the United States Court of Appeals for
 Veterans Claims in No. 22-4229, Judge Joseph L. Toth.
                 ______________________

                  Decided: April 3, 2024
                  ______________________

    EUGENE W. JAROG, Honolulu, HI, pro se.

     MEREDYTH COHEN HAVASY, Commercial Litigation
 Branch, Civil Division, United States Department of Jus-
 tice, Washington, DC, for respondent-appellee. Also repre-
 sented by BRIAN M. BOYNTON, WILLIAM JAMES GRIMALDI,
 PATRICIA M. MCCARTHY.
                  ______________________

     Before LOURIE, REYNA, and CHEN, Circuit Judges.
Case: 23-1548    Document: 74      Page: 2    Filed: 04/03/2024

 2                                      JAROG v. MCDONOUGH

 PER CURIAM.
     Eugene W. Jarog appeals from an order of the United
 States Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims (“the Veterans
 Court”) dismissing his appeal from the Board of Veterans’
 Appeals (“the Board”) as untimely. Jarog v. McDonough,
 No. 22-4229, 2022 WL 14770657 (Vet. App. Oct. 26, 2022)
 (“Decision”). For the reasons detailed below, we dismiss
 Jarog’s appeal for lack of jurisdiction.
                        BACKGROUND
      Jarog served in the United States Marine Corps from
 May 1961 to March 1964. SAppx. 21. 1 In 2016, Jarog re-
 ceived rating decisions from the Department of Veterans
 Affairs (“VA”) Regional Office (“RO”) for post-traumatic
 stress disorder (“PTSD”), a left thumb injury, and an eye
 disorder. SAppx. 8. Jarog appealed those rating decisions
 to the Board, and after a remand, the Board issued its de-
 cision on June 22, 2020. SAppx. 7, 9. The Board held that
 Jarog had established a service connection for his PTSD
 and that Jarog’s thumb injury met the criteria for the max-
 imum schedular rating of 20 percent. SAppx. 8. However,
 the Board also determined that Jarog had not established
 service connection for his eye disorder. Id.
     On July 12, 2022, Jarog filed a notice of appeal of that
 June 2020 Board decision to the Veterans Court, and the
 government subsequently moved to dismiss his appeal as
 untimely. Decision at *1. The Veterans Court held that
 Jarog’s appeal was indeed untimely under 38 U.S.C.
 § 7266(a) and that it could therefore only be accepted if eq-
 uitable tolling was warranted. Id. The court then deter-
 mined that Jarog failed to sufficiently demonstrate a
 connection between an extraordinary circumstance and his

     1  “SAppx.” refers to the supplemental appendix that
 the government filed in this court with its informal re-
 sponse brief.
Case: 23-1548     Document: 74     Page: 3    Filed: 04/03/2024

 JAROG v. MCDONOUGH                                          3

 failure to timely file an appeal. Id. Accordingly, the Vet-
 erans Court held that equitable tolling should not be ap-
 plied and dismissed Jarog’s appeal. Id. at *1–2. This
 appeal followed.
                         DISCUSSION
     Our jurisdiction to review decisions of the Veterans
 Court is limited. We may review the validity of a decision
 with respect to a rule of law or interpretation of a statute
 or regulation that was relied upon by the Veterans Court
 in making its decision. 38 U.S.C. § 7292(a). However, ex-
 cept with respect to constitutional issues, we may not re-
 view challenges to factual determinations or challenges to
 the application of a law or regulation to the facts of a case.
 38 U.S.C. § 7292(d)(2).
     In reviewing a Veterans Court decision, we decide “all
 relevant questions of law, including interpreting constitu-
 tional and statutory provisions.” 38 U.S.C. § 7292(d)(1).
 We may set aside any interpretation thereof “other than a
 determination as to a factual matter” relied upon by the
 Veterans Court that we conclude is “(A) arbitrary, capri-
 cious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance
 with law; (B) contrary to constitutional right, power, privi-
 lege, or immunity; (C) in excess of statutory jurisdiction,
 authority, limitations, or in violation of a statutory right;
 or (D) without observance of procedure required by law.”
 Id. We review questions of statutory and regulatory inter-
 pretation de novo. Andre v. Principi, 301 F.3d 1354, 1358
 (Fed. Cir. 2002) (citing Maggitt v. West, 202 F.3d 1370,
 1374 (Fed. Cir. 2000)).
     In this appeal, Jarog primarily argues that the Board
 should have assigned an earlier effective date to the service
 connection for his PTSD. Jarog asserts that the Board
 should have assigned an effective date of April 1962 to that
 service connection, and he alleges that the Board instead
 improperly assigned it an effective date of December 2002.
 As such, he claims that the Board committed clear and
Case: 23-1548    Document: 74      Page: 4    Filed: 04/03/2024

 4                                      JAROG v. MCDONOUGH

 unmistakable error (“CUE”). Although the Board’s deci-
 sion is unclear regarding the effective date of the service
 connection for Jarog’s PTSD, the exact date is irrelevant
 because its determination involves the application of law to
 the facts of Jarog’s instant case. By statute, “the effective
 date of an award . . . shall be fixed in accordance with the
 facts found,” 38 U.S.C. § 5110(a)(1), and that determina-
 tion involves an examination of a veteran’s service and
 medical records.
      Jarog also raises contentions regarding possible inju-
 ries to his right leg and left ear. However, neither of those
 injuries was mentioned in the Board or Veterans Court de-
 cisions underlying this appeal. As such, a determination
 that Jarog possesses those injuries, and whether or not
 they may be compensable, would involve factual determi-
 nations and the application of law to those findings in the
 first instance.
      Finally, Jarog argues that the Veterans Court’s August
 2022 Statement of the Case contained two instances of
 CUE: (1) a determination that Jarog is single with no de-
 pendents and (2) a determination that Jarog served during
 peacetime. Jarog contends that he does have dependent
 individuals, citing monetary contributions to a “sister fam-
 ily” and a charity. Furthermore, Jarog asserts that his pe-
 riod of active service did not occur during peacetime given
 the ongoing Cuban Missile Crisis. Appellant’s Br. at 15.
 However, those are likewise arguments regarding factual
 determinations by the Veterans Court.
     Furthermore, Jarog does not raise any constitutional
 issues involving those contentions and states in his brief
 that the Veterans Court did not decide any constitutional
 issues in its decision. Appellant’s Br. at 2.
     Each of Jarog’s arguments on appeal therefore con-
 cerns factual determinations or the application of law to
 the facts of his case, in the absence of any constitutional
Case: 23-1548    Document: 74     Page: 5   Filed: 04/03/2024

 JAROG v. MCDONOUGH                                       5

 issues. Accordingly, we do not possess jurisdiction to de-
 cide this appeal under 38 U.S.C. § 7292.
                       CONCLUSION
     We have considered Jarog’s remaining arguments, but
 we find them unpersuasive. For the foregoing reasons, we
 dismiss his appeal for lack of jurisdiction.
                       DISMISSED
                          COSTS
 No costs.