Case: 20-1813 Document: 21 Page: 1 Filed: 10/13/2020
NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.
United States Court of Appeals
for the Federal Circuit
______________________
ERIC JEROME HOLLINS,
Claimant-Appellant
v.
ROBERT WILKIE, SECRETARY OF VETERANS
AFFAIRS,
Respondent-Appellee
______________________
2020-1813
______________________
Appeal from the United States Court of Appeals for
Veterans Claims in No. 18-6555, Judge Coral Wong Pi-
etsch.
______________________
Decided: October 13, 2020
______________________
ERIC JEROME HOLLINS, Bastrop, LA, pro se.
ALISON VICKS, Commercial Litigation Branch, Civil Di-
vision, United States Department of Justice, Washington,
DC, for respondent-appellee. Also represented by JEFFREY
B. CLARK, ROBERT EDWARD KIRSCHMAN, JR., LOREN MISHA
PREHEIM; BRANDON A. JONAS, Y. KEN LEE, Office of General
Counsel, United States Department of Veterans Affairs,
Washington, DC.
Case: 20-1813 Document: 21 Page: 2 Filed: 10/13/2020
2 HOLLINS v. WILKIE
______________________
Before NEWMAN, DYK, and TARANTO, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM.
Eric Jerome Hollins appeals the decision of the United
States Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims (“Veterans
Court”) that affirmed a decision of the Board of Veterans’
Appeals (“Board”), denying him entitlement to service con-
nection for diabetes. Because we lack jurisdiction to review
the issue Mr. Hollins appears to raise in this appeal, we
dismiss.
BACKGROUND
Mr. Hollins served on active duty in the Navy from
April 1991 to February 1995. He also served on several
short periods of active duty for training between 1996 and
April 2003. During his periods of active duty, Mr. Hollins’s
medical examinations, including for blood sugar, were nor-
mal. For example, in November 2001, Mr. Hollins’s blood
work showed a blood sugar level of 93, which is within the
normal range of 70 to 108.
In November 2003, Mr. Hollins was diagnosed with di-
abetes. Mr. Hollins filed a claim for service connection for
type 2 diabetes mellitus in February 2004 with the Depart-
ment of Veterans Affairs (“VA”). In support of his claim,
he submitted various records. After review of his submis-
sion, a VA regional office (“RO”) denied his claim, finding
that the evidence did not show that his diabetes was re-
lated to his service. A series of appeals and remands fol-
lowed, during which the Board repeatedly ordered the RO
to supplement Mr. Hollins’s record.
The series of remands uncovered several facts. For ex-
ample, at a Board hearing, Mr. Hollins testified that his
diabetes may have been caused by environmental hazards
while deployed to Southwest Asia. After this testimony,
Case: 20-1813 Document: 21 Page: 3 Filed: 10/13/2020
HOLLINS v. WILKIE 3
the RO received a military records specialist memorandum
that stated that Mr. Hollins was not deployed aboard any
naval vessels after 1995 and that, prior to 1995, Mr. Hol-
lins was deployed aboard the USS Kitty Hawk, which did
not dock in Southwest Asia during his service. Mr. Hollins
also underwent several VA examinations during the re-
mands. At his third and final VA examination, the exam-
iner concluded that Mr. Hollins was first diagnosed with
diabetes in November 2003 and that there was no objective
evidence that Mr. Hollins had diabetes during his active
duty training service period. The examiner also noted that,
according to Mr. Hollins’s service records, Mr. Hollins could
not have been exposed to environmental hazards while de-
ployed on the USS Kitty Hawk because that ship did not
dock in Southwest Asia during his service. Given this rec-
ord, the RO denied Mr. Hollins’s claim, and he appealed to
the Board.
On July 31, 2018, the Board issued a final decision that
denied Mr. Hollins’s entitlement to VA benefits for diabe-
tes. After weighing the evidence, the Board concluded that
Mr. Hollins’s diabetes “was neither incurred in nor aggra-
vated” by his active duty service or by any of his active duty
training periods. J.A. 10. The Board also found that Mr.
Hollins’s assertions were “contradicted by the objective
medical record” and “the opinions of three VA examiners.”
Id. at 11. It credited the opinions of the three examiners
as “competent, credible, and entitled to significant weight.”
Id. at 12. The Board also noted that the only contrary evi-
dence (outside of Mr. Hollins’s lay statements) was the tes-
timony from his mother, a registered nurse, stating that
her son appeared to begin suffering from diabetes following
his active duty service. Although the Board found his
mother’s testimony credible, it concluded that her testi-
mony was “contradicted by the opinions of the three VA ex-
aminers and the objective medical evidence of record.” Id.
Mr. Hollins then appealed to the Veterans Court.
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4 HOLLINS v. WILKIE
The Veterans Court affirmed the Board’s findings, con-
cluding that Mr. Hollins “ha[d] failed to point to any evi-
dence demonstrating that the Board erred in finding that
his diabetes did not have its onset during his active duty or
periods of active duty for training.” Id. at 7. The court
noted that Mr. Hollins did not identify any other records
that the VA failed to obtain and that, given the evidence
that the USS Kitty Hawk never docked in Southwest Asia,
it was “unclear how there would be any records of treat-
ment” for conditions related to environmental hazards in
that area. Id. Mr. Hollins appealed to this court.
DISCUSSION
We have limited jurisdiction to review decisions by the
Veterans Court. Wanless v. Shinseki, 618 F.3d 1333, 1336
(Fed. Cir. 2010). 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 pre-
sented and necessary to a decision. 38 U.S.C. § 7292(c).
We cannot, however, review “a challenge to a factual deter-
mination” or “a challenge to a law or regulation as applied
to the facts of a particular case” absent a constitutional is-
sue. Id. § 7292(d)(2); Bastien v. Shinseki, 599 F.3d 1301,
1306 (Fed. Cir. 2010) (“The evaluation and weighing of ev-
idence and the drawing of appropriate inferences from it
are factual determinations committed to the discretion of
the fact-finder. We lack jurisdiction to review these deter-
minations.”), overruled on other grounds by Francway v.
Wilkie, 940 F.3d 1304 (Fed. Cir. 2019).
It is unclear what exactly Mr. Hollins challenges on
this appeal. According to his informal brief, Mr. Hollins
does not challenge the Veterans Court’s decision as it re-
lates to the validity or interpretation of a statute or regu-
lation or a constitutional issue. Nor could he. In its
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HOLLINS v. WILKIE 5
opinion, the Veterans Court did not interpret any statutes
or regulations or decide any constitutional issues.
The only argument that Mr. Hollins appears to make
is that his medical records from his deployment to South-
west Asia were not secured and included in his record be-
fore the Board. The Veterans Court, however, concluded
that Mr. Hollins had shown no error in the Board’s findings
of fact, including that Mr. Hollins’s only service on board a
ship was on the USS Kitty Hawk, which did not dock any-
where in Southwest Asia, and that, as a result, his service
on that ship could not have exposed him to any environ-
mental hazards in that area. To the extent Mr. Hollins dis-
putes the factual determinations made by the Veterans
Court and the Board, this court is without jurisdiction to
review those factual determinations. See 38 U.S.C.
§ 7292(d)(2); Saunders v. Wilkie, 886 F.3d 1356, 1360 (Fed.
Cir. 2018) (“Absent a constitutional issue, . . . we lack ju-
risdiction to review factual determinations or the applica-
tion of law to the particular facts of an appeal from the
Veterans Court.”).
Accordingly, we dismiss Mr. Hollins’s appeal for lack of
jurisdiction.
DISMISSED
COSTS
No costs.