Case: 22-2187 Document: 20 Page: 1 Filed: 02/07/2023
NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.
United States Court of Appeals
for the Federal Circuit
______________________
CESAR R. VAZQUEZ TORRES,
Claimant-Appellant
v.
DENIS MCDONOUGH, SECRETARY OF
VETERANS AFFAIRS,
Respondent-Appellee
______________________
2022-2187
______________________
Appeal from the United States Court of Appeals for
Veterans Claims in No. 22-4160, Judge Scott Laurer.
______________________
Decided: February 7, 2023
______________________
CESAR R. VAZQUEZ TORRES, San Juan, PR, pro se.
MATTHEW JUDE CARHART, Commercial Litigation
Branch, Civil Division, United States Department of Jus-
tice, Washington, DC, for respondent-appellee. Also repre-
sented by BRIAN M. BOYNTON, CLAUDIA BURKE, PATRICIA M.
MCCARTHY.
______________________
Before PROST, REYNA, and STARK, Circuit Judges.
Case: 22-2187 Document: 20 Page: 2 Filed: 02/07/2023
2 VAZQUEZ TORRES v. MCDONOUGH
PER CURIAM.
Cesar R. Vazquez Torres appeals from the United
States Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims’ (“Veterans
Court”) decision denying his petition for a writ of manda-
mus. Because Mr. Vazquez Torres’s appeal is moot, we dis-
miss. 1
BACKGROUND
In April 2016, a U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs
(“VA”) regional office (“RO”) granted Mr. Vazquez Torres
entitlement to a 70-percent rating for his service-connected
chronic adjustment disorder with mixed anxiety and de-
pressed mood. Appx2. 2 The RO also granted Mr. Vazquez
Torres entitlement to a total disability rating based on in-
dividual unemployability (“TDIU”) due “in part [to] the im-
pairment caused by [his] chronic adjustment disorder.”
Appx2–3. Both of these entitlements were given an effec-
tive date of January 12, 2016. See Appx37. But, two
months later, the RO proposed to sever Mr. Vazquez
Torres’s service connection for the chronic adjustment dis-
order due to a clear and unmistakable error in its
April 2016 decision and, as a result, discontinue
Mr. Vazquez Torres’s TDIU entitlement. Appx3. The RO
notified Mr. Vazquez Torres of its decision to take those ac-
tions, and Mr. Vazquez Torres appealed to the Board of
Veterans’ Appeals (“Board”). Appx3.
In March 2018, the Board determined that the RO’s
severance of service connection for Mr. Vazquez Torres’s
chronic adjustment disorder was error, and the RO imple-
mented the Board’s decision in April 2018. Appx3.
1 For the same reason, we dismiss Mr. Vazquez
Torres’s separate request for mandamus directed to this
court. Informal Reply Br. 3.
2 “Appx” refers to the appendix attached to Appel-
lee’s informal response brief.
Case: 22-2187 Document: 20 Page: 3 Filed: 02/07/2023
VAZQUEZ TORRES v. MCDONOUGH 3
However, neither the Board’s March 2018 decision nor the
RO’s April 2018 decision addressed or otherwise adjudi-
cated Mr. Vazquez Torres’s TDIU entitlement. Appx3.
Mr. Vazquez Torres did not appeal the Board’s 2018 de-
cision. Instead, he separately petitioned for mandamus
and asked the Veterans Court to “order [the] VA to restore
his TDIU rating and pay retroactive benefits.” Appx3. The
Veterans Court denied that petition because Mr. Vazquez
Torres had not “exhausted alternate means to obtain the
desired relief”—namely, Mr. Vazquez Torres had not filed
a motion with the Board to revise its March 2018 decision
to address his TDIU rating. Appx4–5. Mr. Vazquez Torres
initiated this appeal from the Veterans Court’s denial of his
petition in September 2022.
Since then, in October 2022, the RO issued a decision
resuming Mr. Vazquez Torres’s TDIU entitlement “effec-
tive January 12, 2016.” Appx36. As the RO explained, the
Board’s March 2018 decision restoring service connection
for Mr. Vazquez Torres’s chronic adjustment disorder also,
logically, required restoring Mr. Vazquez Torres’s TDIU
entitlement. Appx37 (describing Mr. Vazquez Torres’s
TDIU entitlement as a “downstream issue” of his service-
connected chronic adjustment disorder entitlement).
DISCUSSION
“[M]ootness . . . is a threshold jurisdictional issue,” My-
ers Investigative & Sec. Servs., Inc. v. United States,
275 F.3d 1366, 1369 (Fed. Cir. 2002), “derive[d] from” the
constitutional requirement that there be “a case or contro-
versy” in order for a federal court to exercise its judicial
power, DeFunis v. Odegaard, 416 U.S. 312, 316 (1974); see
U.S. CONST. art. III, § 2. A claim is moot, for example,
when “the issues presented are no longer live or the parties
lack a legally cognizable interest in the outcome,” Powell v.
McCormack, 395 U.S. 486, 496 (1969) (cleaned up), like
when the complaining party has already received the
Case: 22-2187 Document: 20 Page: 4 Filed: 02/07/2023
4 VAZQUEZ TORRES v. MCDONOUGH
desired relief from his opposing party, see DeFunis,
416 U.S. at 316–20.
But there are exceptions to mootness. Relevant here, a
claim is not moot when it is “capable of repetition, yet evad-
ing review.” See id. at 318–19. Mr. Vazquez Torres argues
that this exception applies to his appeal because, he con-
tends, a VA entity may discontinue his TDIU entitlement
in the future and resolution of this appeal would act “as a
preventative measure” to preclude such an action. Infor-
mal Reply Br. 2–3 (emphasis omitted).
Mr. Vazquez Torres’s appeal does not present a claim
that is “capable of repetition, yet evading review.”
Mr. Vazquez Torres’s argument to the contrary ignores the
“yet evading review” prong. Nothing in the record suggests
that Mr. Vazquez Torres would not be able to obtain an ap-
peal from a future RO decision discontinuing his TDIU en-
titlement.
Mr. Vazquez Torres’s appeal seeking full restoration of
his TDIU entitlement was rendered moot by the RO’s Oc-
tober 2022 decision granting that relief. We therefore lack
jurisdiction and must dismiss. See Myers, 275 F.3d
at 1369.
CONCLUSION
We have considered Mr. Vazquez Torres’s remaining
arguments and find them unpersuasive. For the foregoing
reasons, we dismiss Mr. Vazquez Torres’s appeal.
DISMISSED
COSTS
No costs.