Case: 21-1029 Document: 27 Page: 1 Filed: 10/20/2021
NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.
United States Court of Appeals
for the Federal Circuit
______________________
JOHNNY R. MARTINEZ,
Claimant-Appellant
v.
DENIS MCDONOUGH, SECRETARY OF
VETERANS AFFAIRS,
Respondent-Appellee
______________________
2021-1029
______________________
Appeal from the United States Court of Appeals for
Veterans Claims in No. 19-4135, Judge Amanda L. Mere-
dith.
______________________
Decided: October 20, 2021
______________________
JOHNNY R. MARTINEZ, Dilley, TX, pro se.
JOSEPH ALAN PIXLEY, Commercial Litigation Branch,
Civil Division, United States Department of Justice, Wash-
ington, DC, for respondent-appellee. Also represented by
BRIAN M. BOYNTON, MARTIN F. HOCKEY, JR., LOREN MISHA
PREHEIM; BRIAN D. GRIFFIN, BRANDON A. JONAS, Office of
General Counsel, United States Department of Veterans
Affairs, Washington, DC.
Case: 21-1029 Document: 27 Page: 2 Filed: 10/20/2021
2 MARTINEZ v. MCDONOUGH
______________________
Before DYK, O’MALLEY, and HUGHES, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM.
Johnny R. Martinez appeals a decision of the United
States Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims (“Veterans
Court”). The Veterans Court affirmed in part a decision of
the Board of Veterans’ Appeals (“Board”) denying Mr. Mar-
tinez’s request to reverse or amend three rating decisions
from March 1980, February 2009, and October 2012, find-
ing no clear and unmistakable error (“CUE”). We dismiss.
BACKGROUND
Mr. Martinez served on active duty in the United
States Army from February 1977 to February 1980. He
subsequently filed three formal applications for disability
compensation, the first in February 1980, the second in
September 2008, and the third in February 2012. Those
claims were denied. In February 2019, Mr. Martinez com-
menced a proceeding with the Board, seeking to reopen the
earlier decisions and claiming CUE in each one. The Board
held there was no CUE in the earlier decisions, and the
Veterans Court affirmed in part. Mr. Martinez appeals to
this court.
I. 1980 Decision
Upon separation from the military, Mr. Martinez filed
a formal application for disability compensation for a dislo-
cated right wrist. The same day, he separately filed DA
Form 664, entitled “Serviceman’s Statement Concerning
Application for Compensation from the Veterans Admin-
istration,” which confirmed his formal claim submission
and showed that he had sent service medical records
(“SMRs”) to the VA. The RO’s March 1980 rating decision
denied service connection for the right wrist claim, citing
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MARTINEZ v. MCDONOUGH 3
no evidence of residuals from his in-service complaints re-
lated to wrist pain or dislocation.
In the proceeding under review, Mr. Martinez alleged
CUE related to the claim denial and the RO’s failure to ad-
judicate alleged informal claims for low back and spine is-
sues; right hip, left knee, and left ankle degenerative
changes; asthma; GERD; erectile dysfunction; hearing loss;
and tinnitus. He contended that the filing of DA Form 664
and the SMRs notified the VA of these medical conditions
and constituted an informal claim.
The Board found no CUE in the RO’s service connection
denial for the wrist condition because the wrist condition
was not presumptively chronic under 38 C.F.R. § 3.309
(creating presumption of service connection for chronic con-
ditions), and because Mr. Martinez’s SMRs did not reveal
a dislocated right wrist or residuals, or an in-service event
that would have caused the disability. The Board found no
CUE in the failure to adjudicate the alleged informal
claims because they were not “reasonably raised” in 1980.
On appeal, the Veterans Court upheld the Board’s finding
of no CUE for the March 1980 rating decision, with respect
to the right wrist claim, because the presumption of service
connection did not apply. However, the Veterans Court
disagreed in part with the Board, finding that DA Form
664 notified the VA that Mr. Martinez’s claims were not
limited to the right wrist, and included disabilities re-
flected in his SMRs, rendering the RO’s failure to adjudi-
cate them in 1980 erroneous. Nonetheless, the Veterans
Court found that the error was not prejudicial because the
RO subsequently adjudicated and denied those claims in
February 2009. See Williams v. Peake, 521 F.3d 1348, 1351
(Fed. Cir. 2008) (“[A] subsequent final adjudication of a
claim which is identical to a pending claim . . . denying the
[later] claim on its merits, also decides that the earlier
identical claim must fail.”).
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4 MARTINEZ v. MCDONOUGH
II. 2009 Decision
In September 2008, Mr. Martinez filed a second disa-
bility claim alleging hearing loss; tinnitus; low back pain;
erectile dysfunction; asthma; degenerative changes in the
right hip, left ankle, and left knee; and GERD. In 2009, the
RO denied service connection for all claims except for hear-
ing loss, assigning a 0% disability rating effective Septem-
ber 23, 2008.
In the present proceeding, Mr. Martinez alleged CUE
in the 2009 RO decision. The Board found no CUE. On
appeal, the Veterans Court upheld the Board’s finding that
the claim denials, other than the hearing loss claim, were
not the product of CUE because the claimed conditions
were not subject to presumptive service connection under
38 C.F.R. § 3.303(b), and Mr. Martinez did not “raise any
specific arguments” identifying why the Board’s CUE deci-
sion was incorrect. S.A. 12–13. The Veterans Court also
held that the hearing loss rating was not the product of
CUE because the records Mr. Martinez relied on were not
in “the evidence of record at the time of the decision being
challenged.” S.A. 13. However, the Veterans Court disa-
greed with the Board as to the hearing loss claim effective
date, finding that the RO needed to address whether the
effective date was the result of CUE. It remanded for the
RO to address that question.
III. 2012 Decision
In February 2012, Mr. Martinez filed a request to reo-
pen a claim for tinnitus and to increase his rating for hear-
ing loss. The RO’s October 2012 decision relied on two new
VA audiological exams to grant entitlement to disability for
bilateral tinnitus, assigning a 10% rating effective Febru-
ary 29, 2012, the day Mr. Martinez filed the request to re-
open the claim. The RO continued the 0% rating for
hearing loss.
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MARTINEZ v. MCDONOUGH 5
In the present proceeding, Mr. Martinez alleged CUE
related to the bilateral tinnitus effective date, which he ar-
gued should be revised to February 1980, when he filed DA
Form 664 and notified the VA of an informal claim raised
by his SMRs. The Board found no CUE because the RO
denied his claim in February 2009. On appeal, the Veter-
ans Court affirmed.
Mr. Martinez appeals to this court, and again argues
that all three earlier decisions were the result of CUE.
DISCUSSION
Our jurisdiction to review Veterans Court decisions is
limited. Wanless v. Shinseki, 618 F.3d 1333, 1336 (Fed.
Cir. 2010). We have jurisdiction to “decide any challenge
to the validity of any statute or regulation or any interpre-
tation thereof . . . and to interpret constitutional and stat-
utory provisions, to the extent presented and necessary to
a decision.” 38 U.S.C. § 7292(c). We cannot, however, re-
view appeals challenging factual determinations or the ap-
plication of a law or regulation to the facts unless the
appeal presents a constitutional issue. Id. § 7292(d)(2);
Saunders v. Wilkie, 886 F.3d 1356, 1360 (Fed. Cir. 2018).
This is a law to fact case—the Veterans Court merely
applied the law to the factual record to conclude that the
1980, 2009, and 2012 RO decisions were not the result of
CUE. Mr. Martinez’s factual challenges are unreviewable
by this court.
Mr. Martinez asserts that the Veterans Court improp-
erly interpreted statutes and decided constitutional issues.
His statutory interpretation arguments do not allege erro-
neous interpretation, but instead restate various stand-
ards of review. Mr. Martinez also does not present a viable
constitutional challenge. Finally, to the extent that Mr.
Martinez challenges remanded issues on appeal, these are
not yet final and are thus unreviewable by this court.
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6 MARTINEZ v. MCDONOUGH
We therefore dismiss Mr. Martinez’s appeal for lack of
jurisdiction.
DISMISSED
COSTS
Costs to neither party.