Reaves v. United States

Case: 21-2306 Document: 23 Page: 1 Filed: 02/10/2022

NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.

United States Court of Appeals
for the Federal Circuit
______________________

JOSEPH D. REAVES,
Plaintiff-Appellant

v.

UNITED STATES,
Defendant-Appellee
______________________

2021-2306
______________________

Appeal from the United States Court of Federal Claims
in No. 1:16-cv-00141-ZNS, Judge Zachary N. Somers.
______________________

Decided: February 10, 2022
______________________

JOSEPH D. REAVES, Philadelphia, PA, pro se.

MARIANA TERESA ACEVEDO, Commercial Litigation
Branch, Civil Division, United States Department of Jus-
tice, Washington, DC, for defendant-appellee. Also repre-
sented by BRIAN M. BOYNTON, DEBORAH ANN BYNUM,
MARTIN F. HOCKEY, JR.
______________________

Before LOURIE, SCHALL, and TARANTO, Circuit Judges.
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2 REAVES v. US

TARANTO, Circuit Judge.
Joseph D. Reaves joined the United States Army in
1981. While serving, he was diagnosed with ulcers. In
1986, after initiation of court-martial proceedings against
him, Mr. Reaves requested a “discharge for the good of the
service” in lieu of continuation of the court-martial proceed-
ings, and the Army granted his request and discharged
him. Two decades later, in 2009, Mr. Reaves filed a petition
with the Army Board for Correction of Military Records
(Board), arguing that he should have been given a retire-
ment for physical disability under 10 U.S.C. § 1201. The
Board rejected the contention and denied the petition.
In 2016, Mr. Reaves brought the present action against
the United States in the Court of Federal Claims (Claims
Court) under the Tucker Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1491, arguing
that the Board had erred and that he was entitled to disa-
bility retirement pay starting in 1983, when he allegedly
should have been given a disability retirement because of
his ulcers. The Claims Court dismissed the case for lack of
subject-matter jurisdiction, relying on two independent
grounds: first, that Mr. Reaves’s voluntary request for dis-
charge deprived the court of Tucker Act jurisdiction over
his case; second, that Mr. Reaves’s action was time-barred
by 28 U.S.C. § 2501 because his claim had accrued upon
discharge (in 1986), not when the Board denied his request
for a correction. Reaves v. United States, 155 Fed. Cl. 137,
142 (2021). Mr. Reaves appeals.
We reverse the dismissal for untimeliness. The accrual
standard requires that Mr. Reaves have had sufficient
knowledge of the permanent nature of the asserted disabil-
ity at the time of his discharge. The Claims Court, relying
only on the complaint, cited nothing that supports a deter-
mination of such knowledge; and it made no finding of fact
about other record material. We vacate the dismissal
based on the voluntary request for discharge, a dismissal
the government did not seek in the Claims Court. We
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REAVES v. US 3

conclude that the Claims Court did not support its deter-
mination that voluntary resignation defeats the entitle-
ment at issue here, and that gap in support has not been
filled by the government, which provides no elaboration on
this ground in this court in defending the Claims Court’s
holding. We remand for further proceedings.
I
Mr. Reaves enlisted in the Army on October 6, 1981. In
1983, he was diagnosed with an ulcer, requiring hospitali-
zation. But he “continued on active duty and reenlisted in
the Army” (for a second three-year tour) in 1984. Reaves,
155 Fed. Cl. at 140. In August 1986, he was diagnosed with
a second ulcer. Id. That same year, Mr. Reaves faced
court-martial charges; and to avoid continuation of the
court-martial proceeding, Mr. Reaves “submitted a request
for discharge for the good of the service.” Id. On November
10, 1986, Mr. Reaves was discharged “under conditions
other than honorable.” Id.
More than 22 years later, in May 2009, Mr. Reaves pe-
titioned the Board “to request that his good of the service
discharge be changed to a physical disability discharge” un-
der 10 U.S.C. § 1201. Id. at 140–41. On February 17, 2010,
the Board denied the petition, rejecting the contention that
he should have been medically discharged based on the
1983 ulcer. Id. at 141. Mr. Reaves submitted a request for
reconsideration, and on June 2, 2011, the Board again de-
nied his petition. Id.
On January 29, 2016, Mr. Reaves sued the United
States in the Claims Court—within six years of the Board’s
2010 and 2011 decisions. The premise of his action was
that he had been entitled to a disability retirement under
10 U.S.C. § 1201 in 1983 and that the Army had violated
its own regulations in not referring him to a medical eval-
uation board, which, he alleged, would have found him un-
fit for duty. Therefore, Mr. Reaves argued, he was owed
damages to compensate him for not having received
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4 REAVES v. US

“disability payments that would have been made dating
back to 1983[,] the time of the infraction.” Complaint at 3,
Reaves v. United States, No. 1:16-cv-00141 (Fed. Cl. Jan.
29, 2016), ECF No. 1 (Complaint).
The government moved (a) to dismiss for lack of juris-
diction on timeliness grounds and (b) for judgment on the
administrative record that substantial evidence supported
the Board’s determination that Mr. Reaves was not enti-
tled to a disability retirement. Motion to Dismiss and, in
the Alternative, for Judgment upon the Administrative
Record at 1, Reaves v. United States, No. 1:16-cv-00141
(Fed. Cl. May 31, 2016), ECF No. 12. As to the jurisdic-
tional timeliness ground, asserted under Court of Federal
Claims Rule 12(b)(1), the government based its argument
on the fact that Mr. Reaves “was provided counsel and no-
tified of his rights, as outlined in Army Regulation 635-200,
Chapter 10,” when he submitted his request for discharge.
Id. at 15.
The Claims Court dismissed the case for lack of juris-
diction on two grounds. Reaves, 155 Fed. Cl. at 142. The
first was a ground not explicitly argued by the government.
Specifically, the court concluded that Mr. Reaves’s “volun-
tary request to be discharged for the good of the service in
lieu of facing a trial by court-martial, and his subsequent
discharge, deprive[d] [the Claims Court] of jurisdiction.”
Id. (citing Sammt v. United States, 780 F.2d 31 (Fed. Cir.
1985)).
The second ground was, as the government argued,
that Mr. Reaves’s action was time-barred under the six-
year rule of 28 U.S.C. § 2501 because he filed the action far
more than six years after his claims accrued. Id. at 145. In
support of that conclusion, the court noted the “general
rule” that a disability retirement claim accrues when a mil-
itary corrections board finally denies that claim, but it in-
voked an exception “‘when the service member has
sufficient actual or constructive notice of his disability, and
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REAVES v. US 5

hence, of his entitlement to disability retirement pay, at
the time of his discharge.’” Id. (quoting Chambers v.
United States, 417 F.3d 1218, 1226 (Fed. Cir. 2005)). Cit-
ing the complaint, and nothing else, the court determined
that Mr. Reaves had admitted to the required notice. Id.
at 145–46.
Mr. Reaves timely appeals. We have jurisdiction under
28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(3).
II
The Claims Court relied only on the complaint in dis-
missing the case for lack of jurisdiction because of untime-
liness. We review the dismissal de novo, taking as true all
undisputed facts asserted in the complaint and drawing all
reasonable inferences in favor of the plaintiff. Trusted In-
tegration, Inc. v. United States, 659 F.3d 1159, 1163 (Fed.
Cir. 2011).
“Every claim of which the United States Court of Fed-
eral Claims has jurisdiction shall be barred unless the pe-
tition thereon is filed within six years after such claim first
accrues.” 28 U.S.C. § 2501. Compliance with that timing
rule is a “jurisdictional” requirement. John R. Sand &
Gravel Co. v. United States, 552 U.S. 130, 133–34 (2008).
A claim “accrues as soon as all events have occurred that
are necessary to enable the plaintiff to bring suit, i.e., when
‘all events have occurred to fix the Government’s alleged
liability, entitling the claimant to demand payment and
sue . . . for his money.’” Martinez v. United States, 333 F.3d
1295, 1303 (Fed. Cir. 2003) (en banc) (quoting Nager Elec.
Co. v. United States, 368 F.2d 847, 851 (Ct. Cl. 1966)); see
also Petrella v. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc., 572 U.S. 663,
670 (2014) (“A claim ordinarily accrues when a plaintiff has
a complete and present cause of action. In other words, the
limitations period generally begins to run at the point
when the plaintiff can file suit and obtain relief.” (cleaned
up)).
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We have held that, in general, “claims of entitlement to
disability retirement pay generally do not accrue until the
appropriate military board either finally denies such a
claim or refuses to hear it.” Chambers, 417 F.3d at 1224
(citing Real v. United States, 906 F.2d 1557, 1560 (Fed. Cir.
1990)). But we also have recognized an exception that is
crucial for the present case. Referring to the military
boards available for consideration of disability justifying
retirement, we have ruled that such a claim accrues ear-
lier, i.e., at discharge, when a veteran’s “knowledge of the
existence and extent of his condition at the time of dis-
charge” is “sufficient to justify concluding that he waived
the right to board review of the service’s finding of fitness
by failing to demand a board prior to his discharge.” Real,
906 F.2d at 1562. We have added that whether a veteran
in a particular case had such knowledge “must be deter-
mined by reference to the statutory requirements for disa-
bility retirement, namely, 10 U.S.C. § 1201,” which
includes a requirement that the disability is of a perma-
nent nature. Chambers, 417 F.3d at 1226. We said in
Chambers: “The appropriate inquiry under Real, therefore,
is whether at the time of his separation from the Army in
1970, Chambers knew that he was entitled to disability re-
tirement due to a permanent disability that was not a re-
sult of his intentional misconduct and was service-
connected.” Id. And we applied that standard to rule for
the claimant in Chambers, concluding that, on the record,
Chambers did not have such knowledge, because the “med-
ical diagnoses Chambers received prior to discharge . . . all
indicated that his condition was minor, temporary, and cir-
cumstantial,” “[n]othing in the record indicate[d] that
Chambers considered these diagnoses to be erroneous,”
and “he was returned to regular duty after his brief hospi-
talizations.” Id. at 1226–27.
The Claims Court in this case incorrectly held based on
the complaint that the exception applies to Mr. Reaves,
concluding that his claim accrued upon his discharge in
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REAVES v. US 7

1986. Mr. Reaves asserted in his complaint that he was
hospitalized with an ulcer in 1983 and that the Army failed
to follow its own regulations in not referring him to a med-
ical evaluation board or a physical evaluation board. Com-
plaint at 1–3. Mr. Reaves asserts now that such an
evaluation would have found him unfit for duty and re-
sulted in a disability retirement pursuant to 10 U.S.C.
§ 1201, but those assertions do not speak to whether, in
1983, Mr. Reaves himself had sufficient knowledge (for the
Real/Chambers inference) that the condition was perma-
nently disabling, as required by § 1201. The Claims Court
determined based on the complaint only that Mr. Reaves
“had knowledge of his disability at the time.” Reaves, 155
Fed. Cl. at 145. But the complaint does not show that Mr.
Reaves knew of the permanence of his disability, at least
when reasonable inferences are made in his favor.
The Claims Court’s dismissal therefore must be re-
versed. The Claims Court did not look to the record beyond
the complaint and make factual findings about whether
Mr. Reaves knew of the permanent nature of his disability.
Reaves, 155 Fed. Cl. at 145. In reversing the dismissal that
is before us, we do not foreclose such a factual determina-
tion about timeliness—specifically, about Mr. Reaves’s
awareness of the permanent nature of his disability at the
time of discharge.
III
We vacate the Claims Court’s ruling that Mr. Reaves’s
request for discharge for the good of the service deprived
the court of jurisdiction. The Claims Court did not provide
a sufficient basis for the crucial conclusion that such a re-
quest serves to eliminate the entitlement at issue here, i.e.,
a claim to disability retirement pay.
In Moyer v. United States, 190 F.3d 1314 (Fed. Cir.
1999), which the Claims Court cited here, we established
that whether voluntary resignation defeats a benefit claim
depends on the particular benefit. The relevant facts in
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8 REAVES v. US

Moyer are similar to the facts of this case. While serving
in the Army, Moyer sought a medical evaluation for certain
injuries. Id. at 1316. In addition, facing court-martial pro-
ceedings, he “submitted a request for resignation, appar-
ently to avoid trial by court-martial,” indicating that “he
was voluntarily [resigning] for the good of the service”;
thereafter, he was “discharged without regard to any disa-
bility.” Id. After unsuccessfully seeking relief from the
Board, Moyer sued in the Claims Court “to correct his mil-
itary records to show that he was discharged due to physi-
cal disability” and sought “back pay, allowances,
retirement pay, and severance pay.” Id. Unlike Mr.
Reaves, Moyer also argued that his resignation had not
been voluntary. Id. at 1316–17.
We first acknowledged that our previous decision in
Sammt had held that a voluntary resignation barred juris-
diction over a claim seeking back pay, i.e., pay the claimant
allegedly would have received as a continuing employee
had the asserted error not been committed. Id. at 1318 (cit-
ing Sammt, 780 F.2d at 32–33). But this did not end our
inquiry. We explained that “Sammt never argued, as Mo-
yer [did], that he was entitled to compensation under man-
datory Army regulations, regardless of whether his
retirement was voluntary or involuntary.” Id. at 1319.
And the only payment that Sammt sought was back pay
(for but-for-the-error continued employment), see Sammt,
780 F.2d at 32, an entitlement that he lost upon resigna-
tion, Moyer, 190 F.3d at 1318–19, whereas Moyer’s resig-
nation did not extinguish his claim to entitlements that
were not contingent on continued military service. Id. at
1319. After concluding that Moyer’s resignation was vol-
untary, we proceeded to consider the merits of Moyer’s reg-
ulatory violation claim that he should have been given a
medical discharge. Id. at 1320–21.
Here, the Claims Court did not consider the merits of
Mr. Reaves’s challenge to the Board’s rejection of the con-
tention that the Army erred in not awarding him a
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REAVES v. US 9

disability retirement in 1983 when he had his first ulcer.
Despite the similarity of this case with Moyer, the Claims
Court concluded that Mr. Reaves’s “request for a discharge
for the good of the service, in conjunction with the fact that
his resulting discharge was under other than honorable
conditions, ended his entitlement to disability benefits.”
Reaves, 155 Fed. Cl. at 144. But the Claims Court gave no
adequate justification for that conclusion, which precluded
consideration of the merits of Mr. Reaves’s challenge.
The first rationale the Claims Court stated was that “a
discharge for the good of the service takes precedence over
a medical discharge, requiring the servicemember request-
ing such a discharge to forfeit any right to a medical dis-
charge.” Id. That statement, on which the Claims Court
did not elaborate, suggests a premise that any non-medical
discharge voluntarily requested effects a forfeiture of the
right to a medical discharge, but that proposition is unsup-
ported by law and contrary to our precedents. See Beckham
v. United States, 392 F.2d 619, 625 n.9 (Ct. Cl. 1968) (“The
fact that plaintiff chose to separate voluntarily does not
lessen the Government’s obligation to pay disability retire-
ment if plaintiff actually had an incapacitating disease at
the time of separation.”); McHenry v. United States, 367
F.3d 1370, 1378 (Fed. Cir. 2004) (“[E]ven a member of the
armed forces who retires voluntarily may still seek disabil-
ity benefits . . . .”).
The Claims Court’s second rationale was that “a spe-
cific consequence of being discharged under other than
honorable conditions is the loss of Army benefits,” citing
Army Regulation 635-200 generally. Reaves, 155 Fed. Cl.
at 144. We do not discern such a categorical rule in the
regulation in effect when Mr. Reaves was discharged. See
Army Regulation 635-200, Personnel Separations: Enlisted
Personnel (Sept. 15, 1986 update, effective Oct. 15, 1986).
The provision that seems most relevant states, “Consulting
counsel will advise the soldier [submitting a request for dis-
charge for the good of the service] concerning . . . [l]oss of
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10 REAVES v. US

Veterans Administration [VA] benefits.” Id. at 41 (sub-
chapter “10–2. Personal decision”). That provision requires
only that the Army provide advice that acknowledges the
potential risk of losing VA benefits if a soldier requests dis-
charge for the good of the service. But while a soldier dis-
charged for the good of the service “normally” receives a
discharge under other than honorable conditions, and ben-
efits from VA are presumptively unavailable to most sol-
diers so discharged (subject to case-by-case
determinations), see 38 U.S.C. § 5303, retirement pay is not
a VA benefit: It is administered by the Department of De-
fense. 10 U.S.C. § 1461.
Thus, the Claims Court failed to set forth an adequate
basis for concluding that Mr. Reaves lost his entitlement to
retirement pay by requesting discharge for the good of the
service. Moreover, the Claims Court did not explain why,
if Mr. Reaves had been erroneously denied a medical dis-
charge in 1983, his later-requested discharge in 1986,
which would not have occurred but for the Army’s error,
should still function as a waiver of his claim.
The government has not provided further support for
the Claims Court’s conclusion on this point. Gov’t Inf. Br.
5. On this record and considering the reasoning before us,
we cannot sustain the Claims Court’s conclusion that Mr.
Reaves’s request for a discharge for the good of the service
deprives the court of Tucker Act jurisdiction to adjudicate
a claim for disability retirement based on the alleged regu-
latory violations. We vacate the dismissal and remand.
IV
For the foregoing reasons, we reverse in part and va-
cate in part the Claims Court’s dismissal of the case for lack
of subject-matter jurisdiction and remand for further pro-
ceedings.
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REAVES v. US 11

Costs awarded to appellant.
REVERSED IN PART, VACATED IN PART, AND
REMANDED