Court Opinion

ID: 9961668
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-04-19 15:01:07.214449+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:21:18.832687
License: Public Domain

Case: 22-1942   Document: 42     Page: 1   Filed: 04/19/2024

   United States Court of Appeals
       for the Federal Circuit
                 ______________________

                 BENITO R. CHAVEZ,
                  Claimant-Appellant

                            v.

   DENIS MCDONOUGH, SECRETARY OF VETER-
                ANS AFFAIRS,
              Respondent-Appellee
             ______________________

                       2022-1942
                 ______________________

    Appeal from the United States Court of Appeals for
 Veterans Claims in No. 21-376, Judge Coral Wong Pietsch.
                 ______________________

                 Decided: April 19, 2024
                 ______________________

     SEAN A. RAVIN, Miami, FL, argued for claimant-appel-
 lant.

     EVAN WISSER, Commercial Litigation Branch, Civil Di-
 vision, United States Department of Justice, Washington,
 DC, argued for respondent-appellee. Also represented by
 BRIAN M. BOYNTON, CLAUDIA BURKE, PATRICIA M. MCCAR-
 THY; AMANDA BLACKMON, BRIAN D. GRIFFIN, Office of Gen-
 eral Counsel, United States Department of Veterans
 Affairs, Washington, DC.
                  ______________________
Case: 22-1942    Document: 42     Page: 2    Filed: 04/19/2024

 2                                    CHAVEZ v. MCDONOUGH

     Before LOURIE, BRYSON, and STARK, Circuit Judges.
 BRYSON, Circuit Judge.
     Appellant Benito R. Chavez appeals from a decision of
 the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims (“the Veterans
 Court”) in which that court remanded Mr. Chavez’s claim
 to the Board of Veterans’ Appeals. Mr. Chavez argues that
 the Veterans Court should have reversed the Board’s
 decision rather than remanding the case to the Board, and
 that this court should reverse the Veterans Court’s remand
 order. The government contends that this court lacks
 jurisdiction over Mr. Chavez’s appeal and therefore should
 dismiss the appeal without addressing Mr. Chavez’s
 contention that the Veterans Court’s remand order was
 erroneous. We reject the government’s jurisdictional
 argument but affirm the decision of the Veterans Court on
 the merits.
                              I
     Mr. Chavez served on active duty with the U.S. Army
 during the 1960s, including service in Vietnam. In
 September 2005, he sought service connection for post-
 traumatic stress disorder (“PTSD”). Following a medical
 examination by the Department of Veterans Affairs
 (“DVA”), he was diagnosed with chronic, moderately severe
 PTSD.      A DVA regional office granted him service
 connection for PTSD and assigned him a 100 percent
 disability evaluation. The rating decision indicated that it
 was possible that his condition could improve and that the
 assigned evaluation would be subject to further
 examination.
     In September 2007, Mr. Chavez requested that his
 rating be changed to permanent and total disability, a
 request that led to a further medical examination. The
 examiner concluded that although Mr. Chavez’s symptoms
 were likely to be permanent, his condition did not and
 would not likely result in total occupational impairment.
 Accordingly, in February 2008, the regional office reduced
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 CHAVEZ v. MCDONOUGH                                         3

 his disability rating for PTSD to 50 percent, on the ground
 that the evidence did not establish total occupational and
 social impairment.
      Mr. Chavez filed a notice of disagreement with the
 regional office’s action, in response to which the regional
 office increased his disability rating to 70 percent. In so
 doing, however, the regional office reiterated that it did not
 find any evidence in the record that Mr. Chavez suffered
 from total occupational and social impairment.
     Mr. Chavez then filed an appeal to the Board of
 Veterans’ Appeals, which upheld the reduction in rating
 from 100 percent to 70 percent. The Board found that the
 evidence showed that Mr. Chavez’s PTSD symptoms
 “sustained     material      improvement     through    his
 participation in therapy; he went from the self-reported
 severity of 10/10 to a situation where he began to
 experience emotions, confide in his wife, and have renewed
 interest in activities that bring him enjoyment.” JA 31. In
 reaching that finding, the Board discussed not only the
 information Mr. Chavez submitted to prevent the
 reduction, but also treatment records postdating the rating
 reduction. JA 9–10.
     Mr. Chavez then appealed to the Veterans Court,
 asking that the court reverse the Board’s decision outright
 and order that his 100 percent rating be reinstated. The
 Veterans Court agreed with Mr. Chavez that the Board
 may have improperly relied on “evidence developed after
 the rating reduction” in affirming the rating reduction. JA
 8. The Veterans Court, however, did not reverse the
 Board’s decision. Instead, it remanded the case to the
 Board “to provide an adequate statement of reasons and
 bases for its finding that Mr. Chavez’s PTSD disability
 materially improved under the ordinary conditions of life
 and work by the time of his rating decision.” Id.
                               II
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 4                                      CHAVEZ v. MCDONOUGH

      Mr. Chavez argues that the Veterans Court erred when
 it remanded the case to the Board and that, because of the
 Board’s errors, the court should have reversed the Board’s
 decision and reinstated Mr. Chavez’s 100 percent rating.
 Before reaching that argument, however, we must address
 the government’s contention that we lack jurisdiction over
 Mr. Chavez’s appeal.
     The government contends that we lack jurisdiction in
 this case because the Veterans Court’s remand order
 sending this case back to the Board is not a final order that
 is within this court’s appellate jurisdiction over appeals
 from the Veterans Court.
      The principles governing this court’s jurisdiction over
 remand orders in Veterans Court appeals have been
 frequently stated. As a general matter, this court reviews
 only final decisions of that court. Adams v. Principi, 256
 F.3d 1318, 1320 (Fed. Cir. 2001); Allen v. Principi, 237 F.3d
 1368, 1372 (Fed. Cir. 2001) (“[O]ur jurisdiction is limited to
 the review of final decisions of the Veterans Court, which
 usually does not include remands.”). But there are limited
 exceptions to that principle. As this court summarized the
 matter in the seminal case of Williams v. Principi,
     we will depart from the strict rule of finality when
     the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims has
     remanded for further proceedings only if three
     conditions are satisfied: (1) there must have been a
     clear and final decision of a legal issue that (a) is
     separate from the remand proceedings, (b) will
     directly govern the remand proceedings or, (c) if
     reversed by this court, would render the remand
     proceedings unnecessary; (2) the resolution of the
     legal issues must adversely affect the party seeking
     review; and, (3) there must be a substantial risk
     that the decision would not survive a remand, i.e.,
     that the remand proceeding may moot the issue.
 275 F.3d 1361, 1364 (Fed. Cir. 2002); see also Deloach v.
 Shinseki, 704 F.3d 1370, 1375–76 (Fed. Cir. 2013); Ebel v.
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 CHAVEZ v. MCDONOUGH                                       5

 Shinseki, 673 F.3d 1337, 1340 (Fed. Cir. 2012); Byron v.
 Shinseki, 670 F.3d 1202, 1204–05 (Fed. Cir. 2012).
     The government contends that this case does not satisfy
 the Williams test because Mr. Chavez is simply arguing that
 the Veterans Court should have reversed the Board outright
 rather than remanding the case to the Board for further
 action. If the argument that the Veterans Court erroneously
 remanded the case to the Board were sufficient to grant this
 court jurisdiction over appeals from remand orders by the
 Veterans Court, the government argues, “the narrow
 exception under Williams would swallow the strict rule of
 finality.” Deloach, 704 F.3d at 1377 n.1.
     The government relies principally on the first factor
 from Williams to support its argument of non-finality. It
 contends that the Veterans Court did not make any “clear
 and final decision on a legal issue,” but merely remanded for
 further consideration of the issues by the Board as a
 predicate to further review of those issues by the Veterans
 Court.
     That characterization of Mr. Chavez’s argument is
 inaccurate. His argument is not simply that the Veterans
 Court erred in remanding the case to the Board; instead, he
 argues that when the Board fails to provide adequate
 reasons or bases in support of its decision that a disability
 rating was reduced in accordance with law, the Veterans
 Court is legally compelled to reverse the Board outright and
 may not remand the case to the Board for further
 proceedings. That is a legal argument, and the Veterans
 Court has given a “clear and final decision” in response to
 that argument. That is, the Veterans Court has squarely
 rejected Mr. Chavez’s argument that the court lacks the
 authority to remand under those circumstances. Mr.
 Chavez’s legal argument may be meritless; indeed, we
 ultimately conclude that it is. But it is a legal argument
 nonetheless, and it is one that Mr. Chavez raised before the
 Veterans Court and that the Veterans Court squarely
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 6                                     CHAVEZ v. MCDONOUGH

 rejected. The first factor from Williams is therefore satisfied
 in this case.
     The second and third Williams factors are also satisfied
 here. An adverse decision on the legal issue raised by Mr.
 Chavez is clearly harmful to him: He is arguing in favor of
 a legal rule that, if adopted, would give him precisely the
 relief he is seeking in this overall proceeding, i.e., an order
 reinstating his 100 percent disability rating. On the other
 hand, rejection of his legal argument would require him to
 undergo a remand proceeding, the ultimate result of which
 could be rejection of his claim on the merits.
     Likewise, the third Williams factor is satisfied, because
 the legal issue Mr. Chavez has raised—his right to a
 favorable decision on the merits without a remand—would
 be mooted if a remand is ordered, regardless of whether he
 ultimately prevails in obtaining reinstatement of his 100
 percent disability rating.
      This analysis is consistent with the analysis in several
 of the cases in which, in similar settings, this court has held
 that it had jurisdiction, despite an argument by the
 government that jurisdiction was lacking. In Adams v.
 Principi, supra, we held that this court had jurisdiction over
 a remand order issued by the Veterans Court where the
 appellant’s contention on appeal was that he had a legal
 right to a judgment from the Veterans Court without a
 remand; i.e., the decision of the Veterans Court was held
 appealable “only because the remand deprives Mr. Adams of
 his claimed right to a decision in his favor on the record as
 it now stands and might result in that issue becoming moot
 after further proceedings in the Board of Veterans’ Appeals.”
 256 F.3d at 1321. That is essentially the same legal claim
 that underlies Mr. Chavez’s appeal in this case: that the
 Veterans Court had a legal obligation to decide this case in
 his favor, that it was legally impermissible for it to remand
 the case to the Board, and that a remand order would
 deprive Mr. Chavez of the very right (to a favorable and
Case: 22-1942    Document: 42     Page: 7    Filed: 04/19/2024

 CHAVEZ v. MCDONOUGH                                        7

 dispositive decision from the Veterans Court) that he argues
 he is entitled to.
     This court in Stevens v. Principi, 289 F.3d 814 (Fed. Cir.
 2002), held that this court had jurisdiction to review a
 remand order by the Veterans Court on similar grounds.
 The court explained that the veteran’s argument was that
 the remand was “ordered for a prohibited purpose, that he is
 entitled to a decision in his favor without the need for a
 remand, and that his right to relief might be lost after
 further proceedings on remand.” Id. at 817.
     Likewise, in Byron v. Shinseki, the court noted that “we
 may not review a remand order when the appellant is
 challenging the correctness of the analysis in the remand
 order,” but that “we may review a remand order to
 determine the Veterans Court’s authority to order a
 remand.” 670 F.3d at 1205. See also Deloach, 704 F.3d at
 1377 (holding that this court has jurisdiction when the
 appeal “implicate[s] a legal right not to be subjected to a
 remand”).
      The government cites several cases that it characterizes
 as supporting its position in this case, but none of them do
 so. In Williams itself, the court stated that the Veterans
 Court had not issued a “clear and final decision on a legal
 issue,” but had “merely remanded for further consideration
 of the issues by the Board as a predicate to further review of
 those issues” by the Veterans Court. 275 F.3d at 1365. In
 this case, however, Mr. Chavez argued to the Veterans Court
 that “when the Board fails to use the correct standard in a
 rating reduction case, the Board’s decision is void ab initio,
 and . . . the Veteran’s previous disability rating must be
 reinstated.” JA 244. That is a purely legal contention, which
 the Veterans Court rejected when it ruled that a remand
 was appropriate even though the court had found that the
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 8                                     CHAVEZ v. MCDONOUGH

 Board’s “reasons or bases [for its decision] are inadequate.”
 JA 8. 1
     The government also relies on Ebel v. Shinseki, supra,
 which held that the Veterans Court’s decision was non-final
 and did not fall within the Williams exception. In that case,
 which involved a claim of service connection, the veteran
 argued that the Veterans Court should have found that the
 evidence was sufficient to establish service connection and
 therefore should not have remanded the case to the Board
 for further proceedings. This court held that it lacked
 jurisdiction over the appeal because the veteran had not
 alleged that “the remand was for a prohibitive purpose or
 violated statutory authority.” 673 F.3d at 1342.
     In this case, by contrast, Mr. Chavez argues that there
 is a legal prohibition against remanding the case once the
 Veterans Court finds that the Board has failed to apply the
 proper standards in a rating reduction case. Because that
 legal issue is properly before us, we deny the government’s
 request that we dismiss Mr. Chavez’s appeal.
                              III
     While we agree with Mr. Chavez that this court has
 jurisdiction over his claim, we disagree with him as to the

     1    Before the Veterans Court, Mr. Chavez argued in
 the alternative that if the court rejected his argument that
 he was entitled to reinstatement of his 100 percent rating
 without a remand, the court should remand the case to the
 Board because the Board had provided inadequate reasons
 or bases for concluding that a reduction in his disability
 rating was warranted. In his motion for a decision by a
 panel of that court, Mr. Chavez limited his argument to the
 contention that reversal is the only appropriate remedy
 when there are flaws in a Board decision upholding a rat-
 ing reduction, as pointed out by Judges Meredith and Pi-
 etsch in their opinion concurring in the denial of the motion
 for a panel decision. JA 11.
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 CHAVEZ v. MCDONOUGH                                       9

 merits of his claim that the Veterans Court erred by
 remanding the case to the Board, rather than reversing the
 Board outright and directing that his 100 percent disability
 rating be reinstated.
     In addressing the merits of Mr. Chavez’s claim, it is
 important to note the precise grounds on which the Veterans
 Court based its remand decision. Citing prior Veterans
 Court decisions, the court first noted that “reversal and
 reinstatement are not appropriate when the Board erred
 only in failing to provide adequate reasons or bases for its
 decision on the propriety of a reduction.” JA 7. The court
 then explained that reversal was not warranted because the
 Board “did not completely fail to address [the improvement
 in Mr. Chavez’s PTSD symptoms].” In particular, the court
 noted, the Board explained “how Mr. Chavez’s improvement
 in his PTSD symptoms manifested in his ordinary life.” Id.
      Nonetheless, the court held that “because it is unclear
 from the Board’s decision whether Mr. Chavez attained
 material improvement under the ordinary conditions of life
 and work by the time of his rating reduction, judicial review
 is frustrated and the Court finds that remand is warranted.”
 Id.; see also JA 8. The court added that because the Board’s
 “confusing explanation prevents effective judicial review of
 whether VA complied with its regulations in reducing Mr.
 Chavez’s disability rating,” the court “finds the Board’s
 reasons or bases are inadequate and that remand is
 required.” JA 8.
     There is no force to Mr. Chavez’s argument that the
 Veterans Court was not authorized to remand the case to the
 Board for an explanation of its ruling, which the court
 regarded as necessary to permit effective judicial review of
 the Board’s decision. Congress has expressly authorized the
 Veterans Court to “affirm, modify, or reverse a decision of
 the Board or to remand the matter, as appropriate,” 38
 U.S.C. § 7252, a grant of authority that largely tracks the
 similar grant of authority Congress has provided to the
 Supreme Court and other federal courts of appellate
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 10                                    CHAVEZ v. MCDONOUGH

 jurisdiction in 28 U.S.C. § 2106. It is well settled that in
 federal appellate courts, the power to remand extends to
 cases in which “the reviewing court simply cannot evaluate
 the challenged agency action on the basis of the record before
 it.” Fla. Power & Light Co. v. Lorion, 470 U.S. 729, 744
 (1985). In such cases, “the proper course, except in rare
 circumstances, is to remand to the agency for additional
 investigation or explanation.” Id.
     This court has expressly held that the principles of
 Florida Power & Light apply to the authority of the Veterans
 Court to remand cases to the Board of Veterans’ Appeals if
 the record “does not support the agency action, if the agency
 has not considered all relevant factors, or if the Veterans
 Court simply cannot evaluate the challenged agency action
 on the basis of the record before it.” Euzebio v. McDonough,
 989 F.3d 1305, 1323 (Fed. Cir. 2021) (cleaned up); Deloach,
 704 F.3d at 1381; Adams, 256 F.3d at 1322. 2
     Mr. Chavez has not pointed to anything that suggests
 that principle is inapplicable to the dispute before us. The
 Board’s opinion, in the judgment of the Veterans Court, did
 not provide the court with a sufficient basis for effective
 judicial review, a circumstance that, in the court’s
 assessment, could be cured by a directed remand. Having
 general authority to issue such a remand for that purpose,
 the Veterans Court permissibly exercised that authority and
 directed the Board to remedy the defects that the court
 identified as impeding judicial review.

      2   Those decisions are consistent with the point made
 by the Supreme Court in Shinseki v. Sanders, 556 U.S. 396
 (2009), that the Veterans Court’s review of decisions by the
 Board of Veterans’ Appeals are governed by the same prin-
 ciples that apply to judicial review of federal agency action
 generally. See Tadlock v. McDonough, 5 F.4th 1327, 1336
 (Fed. Cir. 2021).
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 CHAVEZ v. MCDONOUGH                                         11

     Mr. Chavez contends that, at least in the case of a
 challenge to a rating reduction, the Veterans Court lacks the
 authority to remand if it concludes that the record does not
 allow it to affirm the Board’s decision. In such cases, Mr.
 Chavez argues, the Veterans Court must reverse the Board
 and direct that the veteran’s previous rating be restored.
 However, he points to no principled ground for
 distinguishing such cases from other cases in which the
 Veterans Court applies general principles of agency review
 to review—and where necessary, remand—decisions by the
 Board of Veterans’ Appeals.
     Finally, Mr. Chavez raises various complaints about the
 Board’s decision, including that it appears the Board relied
 on evidence obtained after the rating reduction to find that
 Mr. Chavez’s disability improved before the rating
 reduction.      The Veterans Court acknowledged that
 argument but stated that “because it is unclear from the
 Board’s decision whether Mr. Chavez attained material
 improvement under the ordinary conditions of life and work
 by the time of his rating reduction, judicial review is
 frustrated and the Court finds that remand is warranted.”
 JA 7. Thus, the Veterans Court did not reject Mr. Chavez’s
 argument that it was impermissible for the Board to rely on
 post-reduction evidence to justify the reduction of his rating.
 Instead, the court simply said that it was unable to evaluate
 that argument in light of the state of the record. The remedy
 the court selected was to remand the case to the Board for
 clarification. In light of the authorities cited above, that was
 a remedy the court was fully entitled to adopt.
    We therefore hold that this court has jurisdiction over
 Mr. Chavez’s appeal, and we affirm the decision of the
 Veterans Court.
                         AFFIRMED
                            COSTS
 No costs.