Torres v. Peake

Summary

The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit granted the Secretary of Veterans Affairs’ motion and dismissed Torres’s appeal for lack of jurisdiction. The court held that the challenges to notice compliance, remand compliance, disability ratings, and evidentiary weighing involved factual determinations or applications of law to fact outside its jurisdiction under 38 U.S.C. § 7292. The court also rejected Torres’s characterization of the evidentiary challenge as a constitutional due process issue.

Holdings

1. The Federal Circuit lacked jurisdiction to review the determinations that the Secretary provided timely and statutorily compliant notice and complied with the prior remand order because those determinations involved facts or the application of law to facts.
2. The Federal Circuit lacked jurisdiction to review the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims' affirmance of the Board's disability-rating determinations because the challenge concerned facts or the application of law to facts.
3. A party cannot create Federal Circuit jurisdiction by characterizing a fact-bound challenge to the weighing of evidence as a constitutional issue.

Questions Presented

1. Whether the Federal Circuit had jurisdiction to review the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims' determinations that VA provided compliant notice and complied with a prior remand order.
2. Whether the Federal Circuit had jurisdiction to review the disability-rating determinations.
3. Whether Torres's allegation that the Secretary prejudicially selected evidence presented a constitutional due-process issue within the Federal Circuit's jurisdiction.

Disposition

dismissed