Case: 20-1786 Document: 47 Page: 1 Filed: 05/05/2021
NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.
United States Court of Appeals
for the Federal Circuit
______________________
VICTORIA C. MARTIN,
Claimant-Appellant
v.
DENIS MCDONOUGH, SECRETARY OF
VETERANS AFFAIRS,
Respondent-Appellee
______________________
2020-1786
______________________
Appeal from the United States Court of Appeals for
Veterans Claims in No. 19-2375, Judge Amanda L. Mere-
dith.
______________________
Decided: March 5, 2021
______________________
KATHERINE A. HELM, Dechert LLP, New York, NY, for
claimant-appellant. Also represented by JUDAH BELLIN,
DANIEL ROBERTS, Philadelphia, PA.
JOSHUA E. KURLAND, Commercial Litigation Branch,
Civil Division, United States Department of Justice, Wash-
ington, DC, for respondent-appellee. Also represented by
BRIAN M. BOYNTON, CLAUDIA BURKE, MATTHEW JUDE
CARHART, MARTIN F. HOCKEY, JR.; Y. KEN LEE, BRYAN
Case: 20-1786 Document: 47 Page: 2 Filed: 05/05/2021
2 MARTIN v. MCDONOUGH
THOMPSON, Office of General Counsel, United States De-
partment of Veterans Affairs, Washington, DC.
______________________
Before TARANTO, BRYSON, and CHEN, Circuit Judges.
CHEN, Circuit Judge.
Victoria C. Martin appeals from a decision of the Court
of Appeals for Veterans Claims (Veterans Court) denying
her claim to status as a surviving spouse under 38 U.S.C.
§ 101(3) to Robert Martin, Sr., a deceased veteran. While
Ms. Martin does not dispute that she was divorced from
Mr. Martin at the time of his death, she argues that, be-
cause her divorce was precipitated by physical abuse at the
hands of Mr. Martin, she is exempt from the statute’s re-
quirement that the surviving spouse be married to the vet-
eran at the time of his death to obtain benefits. See
38 U.S.C. § 101(3); 38 C.F.R. § 3.50(b)(1).
We have twice confronted and declined to adopt the po-
sition Ms. Martin advocates here. See Haynes v. McDon-
ald, 785 F.3d 614 (Fed. Cir. 2015); Brown v. Wilkie, 814 F.
App’x 565 (Fed. Cir. 2020). In Haynes, we “discern[ed] no
error in the Veterans Court’s interpretation of § 3.50(b)(1)
as providing no exception to the requirement that the sur-
viving spouse and veteran be married at the time of the
veteran’s death,” 785 F.3d at 616, despite Ms. Haynes’s ar-
gument that the basis for her divorce from Mr. Haynes was
his physical abuse, id. at 615. We reached the same con-
clusion recently in Brown, where we reaffirmed that
“[m]arriage at the time of death is a necessary predicate for
a spousal death benefit claim, regardless of the reason for
the divorce.” 814 F. App’x at 567.
Ms. Martin argues that Haynes does not control her ap-
peal because that decision addressed only the VA’s regula-
tion, § 3.50(b)(1), and not whether the statute itself,
§ 101(3), forecloses a domestic abuse exception to the con-
temporaneous-marriage requirement. But Haynes cites
Case: 20-1786 Document: 47 Page: 3 Filed: 05/05/2021
MARTIN v. MCDONOUGH 3
directly to the statutory text of § 101(3), 785 F.3d at 615,
and holds that “[n]o exception to this clear statutory man-
date and regulation is indicated,” id. at 616 (emphasis
added). And, as we later recognized in Brown, our decision
in Haynes was reached “based on our interpretation of
§ 101(3) and its implementing regulations.” 814 F. App’x
at 567; see also Haynes, 785 F.3d at 616 (observing that the
definition of “surviving spouse” in § 3.50(b)(1) “track[s] the
statute”). We therefore see no reason to distinguish
Haynes, which simply followed the “clear statutory man-
date” that a “surviving spouse” is a person “who was the
spouse of a veteran at the time of the veteran’s death.”
§ 101(3).
Given the clear language of the statute and our binding
precedent, we decline to disturb the Veterans Court’s deci-
sion to deny Ms. Martin surviving-spouse status under 38
U.S.C. § 101(3). We have considered Ms. Martin’s remain-
ing arguments and are unpersuaded; we accordingly af-
firm.
AFFIRMED
COSTS
No costs.