Court Opinion

ID: 9370680
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-02-14 16:01:10.524552+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:16:23.056529
License: Public Domain

Case: 22-1247    Document: 44     Page: 1   Filed: 02/14/2023

        NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.

   United States Court of Appeals
       for the Federal Circuit
                  ______________________

                   STANLEY L. DAVIS,
                    Claimant-Appellant

                             v.

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

                        2022-1247
                  ______________________

    Appeal from the United States Court of Appeals for
 Veterans Claims in No. 18-4371, Chief Judge Margaret C.
 Bartley, Judge Joseph L. Falvey, Jr., Judge Joseph L. Toth.
                  ______________________

                Decided: February 14, 2023
                 ______________________

    KENNETH DOJAQUEZ, Carpenter Chartered, Topeka,
 KS, argued for claimant-appellant.

     ASHLEY AKERS, Commercial Litigation Branch, Civil
 Division, United States Department of Justice, Washing-
 ton, DC, argued for respondent-appellee. Also represented
 by BRIAN M. BOYNTON, MARTIN F. HOCKEY, JR., PATRICIA M.
 MCCARTHY; BRIAN D. GRIFFIN, ANDREW J. STEINBERG,
Case: 22-1247    Document: 44       Page: 2   Filed: 02/14/2023

 2                                       DAVIS   v. MCDONOUGH

 Office of General Counsel, United States Department of
 Veterans Affairs, Washington, DC.
                  ______________________

  Before STOLL, SCHALL, and CUNNINGHAM, Circuit Judges.
 STOLL, Circuit Judge.
     Stanley L. Davis appeals the decision of the United
 States Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims (Veterans
 Court) affirming the Board of Veterans Appeals’ (Board)
 denial of an earlier effective date for Mr. Davis’s service-
 connected disability under 38 C.F.R. § 3.156(b) and vacat-
 ing and remanding the Board’s denial under § 3.156(c). Be-
 cause the Veterans Court’s decision is not final, we dismiss.
     Remand orders from the Veterans Court are not final
 judgments. See Williams v. Principi, 275 F.3d 1361,
 1363–64 (Fed. Cir. 2002). We generally decline to review a
 non-final order of the Veterans Court, and we deviate from
 this rule on finality only when a case meets each require-
 ment of Williams’s three-pronged test. Id. At issue here is
 Williams’s third prong, which requires “a substantial risk
 that the decision would not survive a remand, i.e., that the
 remand proceeding may moot the issue.” Id. This prong is
 not met if (1) there is a single claim or (2) there are sepa-
 rable claims that are “inextricably intertwined because
 both claim compensation for the same disability.” Joyce
 v. Nicholson, 443 F.3d 845, 850 (Fed. Cir. 2006). Here, re-
 gardless of whether we view Mr. Davis’s claim under
 § 3.156(b) and (c) as a single claim or as separable claims
 “inextricably intertwined” because they claim compensa-
 tion for the same disability, this case does not meet Wil-
 liams’s third prong.       We thus dismiss for lack of
 jurisdiction.
                         DISMISSED
                            COSTS
 No costs.