Case Information
*2 Before R ADER , Chief Judge , L INN and P ROST , Circuit
Judges .
P ROST , Circuit Judge .
Earlee King appeals from the United States Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims’ (“Veterans Court”) decision affirming the decision of the Board of Veterans’ Appeals (“Board”) establishing May 15, 2000 as the effective date for Mr. King’s benefits award. King v. Shinseki , 23 Vet.App. 464, 471 (2010). Mr. King argues that the Veterans Court erred by failing to require an earlier effective date based on March 1995 and June 1997 com- munications between Mr. King and medical examiners at the Department of Veterans Affairs (“VA”). Because we find that the Veterans Court committed no reversible legal error in affirming the May 15, 2000 effective date, and since all other appealed issues extend beyond our jurisdiction, we affirm .
I. B ACKGROUND
Mr. King served in the United States Army from Feb- ruary 1980 to October 1983. Believing he had schizo- phrenia, Mr. King applied in February 1992 for service- connected benefits to a Veterans Affairs Regional Office (“RO”). The RO denied this claim, however. After an appeal, the Board also denied the claim (in August 1994). Mr. King chose not to appeal the Board’s decision to the Veterans Court. As such, the adjudication became final.
On May 15, 2000, Mr. King sought to formally reopen his claim for service connection, providing as a basis medical records generated during March 1995 and June 1997 visits to a VA hospital. The Board ultimately re- opened the claim, finding that Mr. King had presented new and material evidence since the initial 1994 Board decision. In 2004, the RO granted Mr. King a service connection for schizophrenia with a 100% disability rating, effective May 15, 2000 (the date Mr. King formally applied to reopen his claim).
Mr. King, however, believed that he was entitled to an
earlier effective date because of certain communications
he made to the VA medical examiners during his March
1995 and June 1997 hospital visits. In particular, Mr.
King believed his communications constituted “informal
claims” under the VA regulations. Therefore, he appealed
the RO’s decision to the Board. The Board denied Mr.
King’s request for an earlier effective date because the
record “d[id] not include any communication from the
veteran or his representative received prior to May 15,
2000, that may reasonably be construed as an indication
that he was seeking to reopen his claim for service con-
nection.” A Veterans Court panel affirmed, concluding
that none of the records or other evidence associated with
Mr. King’s March 1995 and June 1997 medical visits
showed that Mr. King possessed the necessary intent
required by the VA regulations to warrant an earlier
effective date.
King
,
Mr. King timely appealed the Veterans Court’s deci- sion.
II. D ISCUSSION
This court’s jurisdiction to review decisions by the Veterans Court is limited. We have exclusive jurisdiction “to review and decide any challenge to the validity of any statute or regulation or any interpretation thereof . . . and to interpret constitutional and statutory provisions, to the extent presented and necessary to a decision.” 38 U.S.C. § 7292(c). Absent a constitutional issue, we lack jurisdic- tion 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).
A. 38 C . F . R . § 3.155( A )
Mr. King asks us to decide whether he is entitled to an effective date before May 15, 2000, which is the date he filed his request to reopen the final adjudication. The effective date for a benefits award stemming from a veteran’s request to reopen a final adjudication is typi- cally “the date that the request to reopen was filed.” Jones v. Shinseki , 619 F.3d 1368, 1371 (Fed. Cir. 2010) (citing 38 U.S.C. § 5110(a)). The VA regulations, how- ever, permit claimants to obtain an earlier effective date in certain circumstances. For instance, under 38 C.F.R. § 3.155(a), “[a]ny communication or action, indicating an intent to apply for one or more benefits” can qualify as an “informal claim” so long as that claim “identif[ies] the benefit sought” and is made by “a claimant, his or her duly authorized representative, a Member of Congress, or some person acting as next friend of a claimant who is not sui juris.” Under this court’s precedent, a communication qualifies as an informal claim pursuant to § 3.155(a) if that communication (1) is written; (2) indicates an intent to apply for benefits; and (3) identifies the benefits sought. Rodriguez v. West , 189 F.3d 1351, 1354 (Fed. Cir.1999). If these requirements are met, the date of the informal claim can serve as the effective date for the benefits award provided that the claimant timely submits an application form to the VA in accordance with the regulation. 38 C.F.R. § 3.155(a).
On appeal, Mr. King argues that he asserted an in- formal claim for benefits under 38 C.F.R. § 3.155(a) during both his March 1995 and June 1997 medical visits to the VA hospital and is thus entitled to a March 1995 or June 1997 effective date. While neither Mr. King nor any of the other entities listed in § 3.155(a) who may file on behalf of Mr. King submitted a written communication to the VA hospital staff during these visits, Mr. King argues that he satisfied § 3.155(a) because he communicated his intent to file a claim to the VA medical examiners who then recorded the contents of these communications in their written reports.
In particular, the report from the March 1995 visit states that Mr. King “is N[on-]S[ervice-]C[onnected] but is trying.” The June 1997 report states that the “[v]eteran wants to file a claim for service connected disability.” If these notes show that Mr. King intended to file a claim for benefits during his VA hospital visits, as opposed to merely informing the medical examiners of his intent to file a claim in the future, it might be argued that he could enjoy March 1995 or June 1997 as his effective date instead of May 15, 2000.
As the Veterans Court explained, the Board did not
directly address the March 1995 and June 1997 visits in
its opinion.
King
,
As evident in the Veterans Court’s analysis, determin- ing whether Mr. King’s communications with VA examin- ers support a finding of intent under § 3.155(a) requires considering the facts in the record and discerning what Mr. King was thinking when he visited the VA hospital. We lack jurisdiction to make findings regarding these fact-based issues and, therefore, cannot upset the Veter- ans Court’s intent ruling. See 38 U.S.C. § 7292(d)(2). As a result, we cannot award Mr. King an effective date prior to May 15, 2000 based on his argument that he had the intent necessary to file an informal claim under § 3.155(a) in March 1995 or June 1997.
In addition to the intent argument, Mr. King asserts
that the Veterans Court erred because it interpreted
§ 3.155(a) to only permit the veteran himself (or one of the
other entities listed in the provision who can file on behalf
of the veteran) to satisfy the writing requirement.
Rodriguez v. West
,
While we have jurisdiction to resolve this matter be-
cause it involves a purely legal interpretation of a regula-
tion,
see
38 U.S.C. § 7292(c), we decline to exercise that
jurisdiction. “[A]s an appellate court (where our jurisdic-
tion permits), ‘[w]e sit to review judgments, not opinions.’”
Szemraj v. Principi
,
Here, a holding that the Veterans Court misconstrued § 3.155(a) in the manner proposed by Mr. King would not impact the court’s finding that Mr. King lacked an intent to file an informal claim before May 15, 2000. Indeed, the intent element and the writing element each require their own, independent analyses. Put differently, even if we agreed with Mr. King and concluded that a writing pro- duced by a medical examiner could qualify as an informal claim under § 3.155(a), Mr. King’s effective date of May 15, 2000 would not change because of the Veterans Court’s intent finding. As mentioned, the Veterans Court’s intent finding must stand because we lack juris- diction to review it. Because a ruling on who can write an informal claim under § 3.155(a) would not impact the ultimate judgment in this case (i.e., that May 15, 2000 is the effective date), we decline to address this issue.
B. 38 C . F . R . § 3.157
Next, Mr. King challenges the Veterans Court’s inter- pretation of 38 C.F.R. § 3.157, another VA regulation permitting an earlier effective date based on the filing of an informal claim. This provision permits a medical report itself to qualify as an informal claim in certain circumstances. See 38 C.F.R. § 3.157. On appeal, Mr. King does not argue that the medical reports produced during the March 1995 and June 1997 VA hospital visits meet the requirements of § 3.157. Instead, Mr. King argues that the Veterans Court erroneously construed § 3.157 such that it is the only regulation under which a veteran can rely on a medical record to support an infor- mal claim. We have jurisdiction to resolve this issue because it involves a purely legal interpretation of a regulation. 38 U.S.C. § 7292(c).
Nothing in the Veterans Court opinion suggests that the court construed § 3.157 as Mr. King alleges. Instead, the court’s own analysis under § 3.155 indicates that it did not view § 3.157 as the only regulation permitting medical reports to support informal claims. Indeed, when analyzing intent under § 3.155, the court considered at length the medical reports from the March 1995 and June 1997 VA hospital visits. Therefore, we reject Mr. King’s § 3.157 argument.
C. Board’s Consideration of March 1995 and June 1997
Hospital Visits
Finally, Mr. King argues that the Board did not con- sider his March 1995 and June 1997 visits to the VA hospital when setting May 15, 2000 as the effective date. Therefore, according to Mr. King, the Veterans Court had no findings on this issue to review. As a result, Mr. King asserts that the Veterans Court’s conclusions regarding the VA hospital visits (e.g., that Mr. King lacked intent under § 3.155) constituted initial, and thus improper, factual findings. In support of its argument, Mr. King relies on Hensley v. West , 212 F.3d 1255, 1263 (Fed. Cir. 2000), which states that the “statutory provisions [apply- ing to veterans] are consistent with the general rule that appellate tribunals are not appropriate fora for initial fact finding.” For the reasons stated below, we reject Mr. King’s argument.
As acknowledged by the Veterans Court, the Board
did not specifically mention Mr. King’s March 1995 and
June 1997 visits to the VA hospital in its opinion.
King
,
The Veterans Court found no error in the Board’s de- cision to set the effective date at May 15, 2000. King , 23 Vet.App. at 472. The Veterans Court did, however, elabo- rate on the medical records issue, explaining that these records do not undermine the Board’s conclusions. Id. at 470-71. Determining whether these elaborations rise to the level of initial fact findings requires a comparison between the Board’s findings and the Veterans Court’s findings. We lack jurisdiction to conduct this fact-based analysis. See 38 U.S.C. § 7292(d)(2).
Mr. King attempts to couch his argument that the Veterans Court made initial factual findings argument as purely legal. In particular, Mr. King argues that had the “Veterans Court applied the correct legal standard for judicial review, it would have concluded that the Board’s finding of fact on the issue of whether Mr. King filed a claim to reopen prior to May 2000 [was] arbitrary, capri- cious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accor- dance with law.” We could only reach this conclusion, however, after comparing the Board and Veterans Court findings in the manner discussed in the previous para- graph. Because Mr. King’s proposed legal argument ultimately reduces to a fact-based analysis, we lack jurisdiction to address this matter under 38 U.S.C. § 7292. Cook v. Principi , 353 F.3d 937, 937-38 (Fed. Cir. 2003) (finding no jurisdiction because review of issue “ultimately reduce[d] to an application of the law to facts” where veteran “present[ed] his argument as a legal prem- ise couched in terms of statutory interpretation”).
III. C ONCLUSION
Because we find that the Veterans Court committed no reversible legal error in affirming the May 15, 2000 effective date, and since all other appealed issues are beyond our jurisdiction, we affirm.
C OSTS
Each party shall bear its own costs.
AFFIRMED
Notes
[1] It is unclear whether the Veterans Court inter- preted § 3.155(a) in the manner Mr. King alleges, but we will assume it did for purposes of this appeal.