Court Opinion

ID: 9383945
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-03-31 15:01:38.97811+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:17:49.172906
License: Public Domain

Case: 22-2142    Document: 30     Page: 1   Filed: 03/07/2023

        NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.

   United States Court of Appeals
       for the Federal Circuit
                  ______________________

                 RONNIE L. BENNETT,
                   Claimant-Appellant

                             v.

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

                        2022-2142
                  ______________________

    Appeal from the United States Court of Appeals for
 Veterans Claims in No. 20-5643, Chief Judge Margaret C.
 Bartley, Judge Amanda L. Meredith, Judge William S.
 Greenberg.
                 ______________________

                  Decided: March 7, 2023
                  ______________________

    RONNIE LEE BENNETT, Memphis, TN, pro se.

     REBECCA SARAH KRUSER, Commercial Litigation
 Branch, Civil Division, United States Department of Jus-
 tice, Washington, DC, for respondent-appellee. Also repre-
 sented by BRIAN M. BOYNTON, PATRICIA M. MCCARTHY,
 LOREN MISHA PREHEIM; TYRONE COLLIER, Y. KEN LEE,
Case: 22-2142    Document: 30     Page: 2    Filed: 03/07/2023

 2                                   BENNETT   v. MCDONOUGH

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

      Before DYK, REYNA, and STARK, Circuit Judges.
 PER CURIAM.
     Ronnie L. Bennett, a veteran of the U.S. Air Force, ap-
 peals a decision of the United States Court of Appeals for
 Veterans Claims (“Veterans Court”) affirming the effective
 date of his disability rating for pseudofolliculitis barbae
 (“PFB”) with disfigurement (a skin condition typically
 caused by shaving) that began during his period of active
 service. We lack jurisdiction over some of Mr. Bennett’s
 claims, and affirm the Veterans Court’s ruling to the extent
 that we do have jurisdiction. We therefore affirm in part
 and dismiss in part.
                        BACKGROUND
     Mr. Bennett served on active duty from January 1976
 until November 1977. He first sought compensation for
 PFB in 2000, and was granted service connection for the
 condition in 2001 with a 10% disability rating. In 2011,
 after further proceedings, Mr. Bennett filed a claim to in-
 crease his PFB rating and change the effective date of that
 rating. A month later, he asserted that the Department of
 Veterans Affairs (“VA”) had made clear and unmistakable
 errors (“CUE”) in its PFB-related decisions. The Regional
 Office largely denied Mr. Bennett’s claims, but concluded
 that his disability should be deemed PFB with disfigure-
 ment, with an unchanged disability rating. Mr. Bennett
 appealed, and in 2017 the Board of Veterans’ Appeals
 (“Board”) affirmed in relevant part.
     After Mr. Bennett appealed the Board’s decision to the
 Veterans Court, in 2018 he and the VA settled and agreed
 to terminate the appeal. Under that stipulation, the VA
 agreed to “award a 30% disability rating under the
Case: 22-2142     Document: 30      Page: 3    Filed: 03/07/2023

 BENNETT   v. MCDONOUGH                                       3

 provisions of 38 C.F.R. § 4.118, Diagnostic Code (DC) 7800”
 for Mr. Bennett’s “pseudofolliculitis barbae with disfigure-
 ment.” S.A. 174. 1 The parties did not agree on an effective
 date for the new rating, and Mr. Bennett preserved his
 right to appeal any determination of an effective date by
 the Regional Office.
      In 2018, Mr. Bennett’s Regional Office updated his dis-
 ability rating to 30% with an effective date of April 26,
 2011, the date the VA received the claim that ultimately
 led to the 2018 settlement between Mr. Bennett and the
 agency. See 38 U.S.C. § 5110(a)(1) (“Unless specifically
 provided otherwise . . . the effective date of an award based
 on an initial claim, or a supplemental claim, of compensa-
 tion . . . shall not be earlier than the date of receipt of ap-
 plication therefor.”); Arellano v. McDonough, 143 S. Ct.
 543, 546–47 (2023). Mr. Bennett appealed the Regional Of-
 fice’s decision to the Board, which affirmed. The Board
 found that there was no evidence of “an earlier, unadjudi-
 cated claim for an increased rating for [Mr. Bennett’s] skin
 condition” and that Mr. Bennett had, in his settlement,
 waived his CUE claim as to the agency’s 2001 decision.
 S.A. 210–11. It also concluded that there was no evidence
 Mr. Bennett’s condition had worsened in the year prior to
 receipt of the April 2011 claim. Mr. Bennett appealed to
 the Veterans Court. The Veterans Court affirmed the
 Board in relevant part, finding no error in its fact finding
 or interpretation of Mr. Bennett’s settlement. This appeal
 followed.
                          DISCUSSION
    “Our jurisdiction to review decisions of the Veterans
 Court is limited by statute.”         Flores-Vazquez v.
 McDonough, 996 F.3d 1321, 1325 (Fed. Cir. 2021). Under

     1  “S.A.” refers to the Supplemental Appendix filed
 with the government’s brief.
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 4                                    BENNETT   v. MCDONOUGH

 38 U.S.C. § 7292(c), we may “review and decide any chal-
 lenge to the validity of any statute or regulation or any in-
 terpretation thereof” by the Veterans Court, and “interpret
 constitutional and statutory provisions, to the extent pre-
 sented and necessary to a decision.” However, we “may not
 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.” Id. § 7292(d)(2).
     Mr. Bennett first argues that the Board erred by clas-
 sifying his disability solely under diagnostic code 7800, ra-
 ther than under an additional diagnostic code. That
 argument is legally precluded by Mr. Bennett’s settlement
 with the government, which provided that the VA would
 classify his “pseudofolliculitis barbae with disfigure-
 ment”—i.e., the entirety of the disability at issue here—un-
 der “Diagnostic Code (DC) 7800.” S.A. 174.
      Second, Mr. Bennett contends that the Veterans Court
 erred by affirming the Board’s conclusion that April 26,
 2011, is the effective date for his increased disability rat-
 ing. He argues that his effective date should either be Au-
 gust 2000, when the VA allegedly first observed his facial
 scars, or, because of equitable tolling, March 1976, during
 his period of active service, when Mr. Bennett says he was
 first diagnosed with PFB. As to the August 2000 date, our
 cases establish that a medical record of a disability is not
 equivalent to a formal or informal claim to the VA entitling
 a veteran to an earlier effective date. See Akers v. Shinseki,
 673 F.3d 1352, 1357 (Fed. Cir. 2012) (“[T]to qualify as an
 informal claim, a communication must: (1) be in writing;
 (2) indicate an intent to apply for benefits; and (3) identify
 the benefits sought.”); Sellers v. Wilkie, 965 F.3d 1328,
 1338 (Fed. Cir. 2020).
     Mr. Bennett’s assertion that his eligibility date should
 have been equitably tolled—because his disability is alleg-
 edly the result of experiments conducted on him by the Air
 Force when he was on active duty—is foreclosed by the
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 BENNETT   v. MCDONOUGH                                     5

 Supreme Court’s recent decision in Arellano. The Court
 held that eligibility date determinations under 38 U.S.C.
 § 5110 are not subject to equitable tolling. See Arellano,
 143 S. Ct. at 546.
     Finally, Mr. Bennett argues that his treatment during
 military service violated a host of constitutional and statu-
 tory provisions. But he has not shown that the Veterans
 Court had jurisdiction to consider these claims. They are
 thus beyond our jurisdiction. See 38 U.S.C. § 7292(a).
     AFFIRMED IN PART, DISMISSSED IN PART
                            COSTS
 No costs.