Wanda Williams v. Douglas A. Collins, Secretary of Veterans Affairs

N OTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.
United States Court of Appeals
for the Federal Circuit
______________________
WANDA WILLIAMS,
Claimant-Appellant
v.
DOUGLAS A. COLLINS, SECRETARY OF
VETERANS AFFAIRS,
Respondent-Appellee
______________________
2024-1030
______________________
Appeal from the United States Court of Appeals for
Veterans Claims in No. 22-1754, Judge Michael P. Allen.
______________________
Decided: February 18, 2025
______________________
J. BRYAN J ONES , III, J B Jones III LLC, Lafayette, LA,
argued for claimant-appellant.
MEREDYTH C OHEN HAVASY , Commercial Litigation
Branch, Civil Division, United States Department of Jus-
tice, Washington, DC, argued for respondent-appellee.
Also represented by BRIAN M. BOYNTON, ELIZABETH MARIE
HOSFORD, P ATRICIA M. MCCARTHY ; CHRISTINA L YNN
G REGG, BRIAN D. G RIFFIN, Office of General Counsel,
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WILLIAMS v. COLLINS 2
United States Department of Veterans Affairs, Washing-
ton, DC.
______________________
Before STOLL , CLEVENGER , and CUNNINGHAM , Circuit
Judges.
CLEVENGER , Circuit Judge.
Mrs. Wanda Williams (“Mrs. Williams”), on behalf of
her deceased husband, Mr. Thomas Williams (“Mr. Wil-
liams”), seeks review of the final decision of the United
States Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims (“Veterans
Court”), which upheld the findings of the Board of Veter-
ans’ Appeals (the “Board”) rejecting Mr. Williams’s allega-
tions of clear and unmistakable error (“CUE”) in his case.
Williams v. McDonough, No. 22-1754 (Vet. App. Aug. 24,
2023). For the reasons set forth below, we affirm the Vet-
erans Court’s final decision.
I
Mr. Williams served honorably in the United States
Army from January 1969 to May 1970. In 1973, Mr. Wil-
liams sought compensation for an alleged back condition
which he claimed was caused by carrying a footlocker in
November of 1969. Following tests and an examination,
the Department of Veterans Affairs’ (“VA”) regional office
(“RO”) denied Mr. Williams’s claim on January 1, 1975.
The Rating Decision noted that Mr. Williams “gave [a] his-
tory of injury to his back in civilian life from lifting heavy
metal and also being thrown from a car.” Further, Mr. Wil-
liams’s separation exam from when he left the Army was
“negative for a back injury.” The report also noted that an
X-ray of Mr. Williams’s spine “was normal except for [a]
finding of spina bifida of S1” and Mr. Williams did not have
“any treatment for a back condition until 1/30/73.” The RO
found “no evidence of trauma to the back in service nor
[any] aggravation of preservice back condition.” In further
explaining why it was denying compensation, the RO noted
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WILLIAMS v. COLLINS 3
that the “[r]esiduals, low back strain” Mr. Williams com-
plained about “were not incurred in nor aggravated by ser-
vice,” and that the “[s]pina [b]ifida . . . [was] not classed as
a disease or injury by our laws and regulations.” The 1975
decision became final when Mr. Williams failed to file a
timely Notice of Disagreement challenging the determina-
tion and failed to submit new and material evidence within
one year of the decision’s promulgation.
II
In April 2011, Mr. Williams applied to reopen his back
disability claim, arguing that “[w]hen [he] was in basic
training, [his] legs and feet and back gave out on [him]” and
that he was improperly denied service connection. Follow-
ing a review, in June 2012, the VA granted Mr. Williams
compensation for “conditions . . . related to [his] military
service” including a “[d]egenerative disc disease” with an
effective date of April 12, 2011 (the “2012 decision”), though
the VA provided no explanation or reasoning for its find-
ings of service connection for degenerative disc disease.
Like the 1975 decision, the 2012 decision became final be-
cause Mr. Williams did not file a timely Notice of Disagree-
ment challenging the decision, nor did he submit new
evidence and material evidence within one year of its prom-
ulgation.
III
In 2021, Mr. Williams engaged an attorney to challenge
the 1975 and 2012 rating decisions on the ground of clear
and unmistakable error (“CUE”). CUE is a very specific
and rare kind of error, which if proved allows collateral at-
tack on an otherwise final decision. 38 C.F.R. § 3.105. CUE
claims against rating decisions are authorized by statute.
38 U.S.C.§ 5109A. To prevail, a CUE claimant must show
that the alleged error (1) is “based on the record and the
law that existed at the time of the prior adjudication in
question”; (2) is “undebatable”; and (3) “would have mani-
festly changed the outcome at the time it was made.”
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WILLIAMS v. COLLINS 4
George v. McDonough, 991 F.3d 1227, 1233 (Fed. Cir. 2021)
(cleaned up).1 Misinterpretation of applicable law or fail-
ure to consider evidence of record thus can lead to CUE.
Mr. Williams’s CUE claim argued error in the 1975 rat-
ing decision on two grounds. First, Mr. Williams claimed
that the rating decision denied service connection “due to a
finding that [his spina bifida] back condition was a congen-
ital or developmental disability,” and as such was not com-
pensable. Mr. Williams claimed that the focus instead
should have been on his lower back condition, not on his
congenital disability. His CUE claim did not specify the
kind of error involved in the alleged misdiagnosis of the
condition for which he sought relief, but it appears that the
alleged error could be one of law in misinterpreting the con-
dition for which he sought relief. Second, he assigned CUE
error to the 1975 rating decision finding that there was no
evidence of trauma to his back during service. Mr. Wil-
liams asserted clear error in the finding of no trauma be-
cause his records showed that he suffered back strain in
service.
Mr. Williams also alleged CUE in the 2012 rating deci-
sion. That decision, which granted Mr. Williams service
connection for degenerative disc disease, did not revisit the
correctness of the 1975 rating decision. Mr. Williams al-
leged that service records discovered after 1975 actually
were available at the time of the 1975 rating decision, and
as such required reassessment of the 1975 rating decision
for CUE. The RO denied Mr. Williams’s CUE claims, and
he timely appealed the RO decision to the Board.
In its decision dated February 3, 2022, the Board de-
nied Mr. Williams’s CUE claims. On the first ground chal-
lenging the 1975 rating decision, the Board concluded that
1 George was affirmed by the Supreme Court. See
George v. McDonough, 596 U.S. 740 (2022).
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WILLIAMS v. COLLINS 5
Mr. Williams was incorrect that the rating decision had de-
nied his claim because he was seeking relief for a congeni-
tal or developmental disability. Instead, the Board found
that Mr. Williams’s claim was for a separate back disabil-
ity, and that his spina bifida congenital condition was
merely noted as an incidental finding in his medical rec-
ords. On the second ground, that the finding of no trauma
in service was erroneous, the Board reviewed the entirety
of Mr. Williams’s medical records as of the 1975 rating de-
cision and determined that while reasonable minds might
differ, the record as a whole supported the finding that his
carrying of a footlocker did not constitute a traumatic
event. Because a claimant cannot show undebatable error
when reasonable minds thus differ, the Board rejected the
second ground of Mr. Williams’s CUE claims.
Regarding Mr. William’s argument that the 2012 rat-
ing decision led to CUE by failing to recognize that addi-
tional factual information existed as of 1975 but was not
then considered, the Board rejected it out of hand because
the additional evidence cited by Mr. Williams actually was
no more than duplicate copies of evidence that was before
and considered by the rating board in 1975.
IV
Mr. Williams timely appealed the adverse Board deci-
sion to the Veterans Court. When Mr. Williams thereafter
died, Mrs. Williams was substituted to continue the appeal
on his behalf. Mrs. Williams did not pursue the claim of
CUE error in the 2012 rating decision and limited her ap-
peal to alleged CUE error in the 1975 rating decision, as-
serting two grounds of error. First, that the rating decision
erred by determining that Mr. Williams’s back condition
was a non-compensable congenital or developmental de-
fect, and second, that the 1975 rating decision failed to rec-
ognize that Mr. Williams experienced back injury trauma
while in service.
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WILLIAMS v. COLLINS 6
The Veterans Court affirmed the Board’s February 3,
2022, decision denying Mr. Williams’s CUE challenge to
the 1975 rating decision. Specifically, the Veterans Court
agreed with the Board that the 1975 rating decision did not
deny Mr. Williams’s claim for relief solely on the ground he
sought compensation for a congenital defect. Instead, the
Board correctly determined that the 1975 rating decision
denied relief for a different back condition. On the question
of whether CUE error could be found in the 1975 determi-
nation that Mr. Williams had not suffered trauma in ser-
vice, the Veterans Court affirmed the Board’s analysis: as
reasonable minds could differ as to whether the lifting of a
footlocker amounted to trauma, no CUE can be found in the
finding.
V
Mrs. Williams timely appealed the Veterans Court’s
decision to this Court. We have jurisdiction under 38
U.S.C. § 7292. Our review of a Veteran’s Court decision is
limited by statute. Fundamentally, we are limited to the
assessment of challenges to the validity or interpretation
of laws or regulations relied on by the Veterans Court, and
may not review factual determinations unless they are con-
nected to constitutional challenges. See id.; Smith v.
McDonough, 101 F.4th 1375, 1377-78 (Fed. Cir. 2024) (cit-
ing 38 U.S.C. § 7292(d)(2)).
VI
The relief Mrs. Williams seeks in this case is to estab-
lish an earlier effective date than April 12, 2011 for Mr.
Williams’s lower back disability. If CUE were found in the
1975 rating decision, meaning that it is undebatable that
Mr. Williams should have been awarded service connection
for his lower back disability in 1975, then the earlier effec-
tive date of 1975 would be warranted. But, as we will ex-
plain below, there is no legal error in the determination of
no CUE in the 1975 rating decision, and the April 2011 ef-
fective date must stand.
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WILLIAMS v. COLLINS 7
On appeal, Mrs. Williams reframes her first argument
of error in 1975 compared to the arguments she made be-
fore the Board and the Veterans Court. Instead of arguing
directly, as she did below, that the 1975 rating decision was
wrongly focused on a claim for relief based on a congenital
condition, she now argues that the Board improperly bifur-
cated the issue “of whether or not the veteran suffered from
spina bifida instead of lower back injury.” Appellant’s Br.
4-5. As a consequence of the alleged bifurcation error, Mrs.
Williams argues that the “presumption of soundness” ap-
plies and would require the Board to “give a sympathetic
reading” and “not hold [her] to an ‘undebatable’ standard.”
Appellant’s Br. 5. Mrs. Williams asserts that if Mr. Wil-
liams’s back injury (as opposed to his congenital condition)
is “capable of getting worse, the presumption of soundness
applies” but she does not explain why the Board must give
a “sympathetic reading” nor to what fact or issue the Board
must give such a reading. Nor does Mrs. Williams explain
why the finding that Mr. Williams’s back condition is capa-
ble of worsening would require revising the CUE standard
to find CUE even when the claim for CUE relief is debata-
ble.
First, there is no “bifurcation error” in the 1975 rating
decision. As first the Board and then the Veterans Court
explained, the 1975 rating decision considered whether Mr.
Williams was entitled for relief for an injury to his back
while in service. No consideration was given to whether
Mr. Williams was claiming entitlement for a congenital
condition, which was simply noted in passing in his medi-
cal records. Because there is no error in the 1975 rating
decision’s analysis of Mr. Williams’s medical condition, her
presumption of soundness argument lacks any argued ba-
sis. Even so, her suggestion that there is room for the pre-
sumption of soundness in the CUE analysis of this case
lacks merit.
The presumption of soundness principle has statutory
roots. “[E]very veteran shall be taken to have been in
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WILLIAMS v. COLLINS 8
sound condition when examined, accepted, and enrolled for
service, except as to defects, infirmities, or disorders, noted
at the time of examination, acceptance and enrollment, or
where clear and unmistakable evidence demonstrates that
the injury or disease existed before acceptance and enroll-
ment and was not aggravated by such service.” 38 U.S.C.
§ 1111. The principle serves to prevent the government
from easily contending that a veteran’s condition resulted
from a pre-service injury when the veteran’s entrance ex-
amination showed no previous injury. See Dye v. Mans-
field, 504 F.3d 1289, 1292-93 (Fed. Cir. 2007). This case
does not invoke the presumption of soundness because the
record is devoid of any claim that Mr. Williams’s 1975 claim
was denied based on a pre-service condition not noted upon
entrance to service. To the extent Mrs. Williams may be
arguing that the presumption of soundness somehow arose
in connection with the 1975 rating decision and was not
properly rebutted by the government, we note that ques-
tions of the sufficiency of evidence to support rebuttal are
matters of fact beyond the reach of our jurisdictional au-
thority to review decisions of the Veterans Court. See Har-
ris v. West, 203 F.3d 1347, 1351 (Fed. Cir. 2000). In short,
the presumption of soundness is triggered by a veteran’s
entrance examination, not by an alleged bifurcation of a
veteran’s claims, as argued by Mrs. Williams.
Mrs. Williams’s “sympathetic reading” argument cites
Moody v. Principi, 360 F.3d 1306 (Fed. Cir. 2004) for sup-
port. In that case, the veteran filed a CUE claim arguing
that the rating agency failed to properly consider an infor-
mal claim for secondary service connection. Id. at 1309.
The Board and Veterans Court held that the veteran had
not sufficiently raised his informal claim and thus no CUE
error was committed in failing to consider the claim. Id.
This Court held that the Board and Veterans Court erred
in not affording the veteran a sympathetic reading to his
filings to determine all potential informal claims raised by
the evidence. Id. at 1310. Moody is unavailing to Mrs.
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WILLIAMS v. COLLINS 9
Williams. She points to no claim for relief denied to Mr.
Williams that could survive if the claim were given a sym-
pathetic reading. As with her reference to the presumption
of soundness, she cites principles of law applicable gener-
ally to veterans’ claims, but those principles have no
grounds for application in this case.
Mrs. Williams argues that if the presumption of sound-
ness were applicable, and the burden was on the govern-
ment to rebut the presumption by “a very high burden of
proof” (clear and unmistakable evidence), then the “sympa-
thetic reading” test would be more appropriate in this case
than the requirement that a CUE error be “undebatable.”
Appellant’s Br. 13. This argument fails on its premise be-
cause the presumption of soundness has no practical appli-
cation in this case, as explained above. Even so, the law is
clear that CUE requires an undebatable error, and this
panel lacks the authority to remove or alter an element of
CUE, were we so inclined, which we are not. Deckers Corp.
v. United States, 752 F.3d 949, 964 (Fed. Cir. 2014) (“We
have also adopted the rule that a panel of this court—which
normally sits in panels of three, and not en banc—is bound
by the precedential decision of prior panels unless and un-
til overruled by an intervening Supreme Court or en banc
decision.”).
Mrs. Williams also reframes the second argument she
made below. Instead of arguing, as she did below, that the
record actually showed a trauma resulting from carrying
the footlocker, she now argues that the 1975 rating decision
established an additional specific “trauma requirement”
that must be satisfied to establish service connection for an
injury, contrary to 38 C.F.R. § 3.303, which does not require
proof of trauma to demonstrate service connection.2
2 38 C.F.R. § 3.303(a) states, “Service connection con-
notes many factors but basically it means that the facts,
shown by evidence, establish that a particular injury or
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WILLIAMS v. COLLINS 10
Although argued for the first time here, Mrs. Williams
raises an interpretation of law issue within our jurisdic-
tional reach.
The only in service event relating to Mr. Williams’s
back was his November 1969 complaint of back strain from
carrying a footlocker. The 1975 rating decision did not con-
sider that complaint to identify a traumatic event, but also
did not deny the claim because the event was less than
traumatic. The claim was denied for lack of service connec-
tion because the rating decision did not find a connection
between the single in-service event in November of 1969
and Mr. Williams’s back condition at the time he applied
for benefits in 1973. The record does not support Mrs. Wil-
liams’s contention that the 1975 rating decision denied her
husband’s claim because his 1969 back strain was not a
traumatic injury, thus requiring trauma as an element to
show service connection.
CONCLUSION
Mrs. Williams fails to show CUE in the 1975 rating de-
cision, and therefore we affirm the final decision of the Vet-
erans Court.
AFFIRMED
COSTS
No costs.
disease resulting in disability was incurred coincident with
service in the Armed Forces, or if preexisting such service,
was aggravated therein.”
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