Michael R. Regis v. Denis McDonough, Secretary of Veterans Affairs

N OTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.
United States Court of Appeals
for the Federal Circuit
______________________
MICHAEL R. REGIS,
Claimant-Appellant
v.
DENIS MCDONOUGH, SECRETARY OF
VETERANS AFFAIRS,
Respondent-Appellee
______________________
2023-1299
______________________
Appeal from the United States Court of Appeals for
Veterans Claims in No. 21-3469, Judge Amanda L. Mere-
dith.
______________________
Decided: April 16, 2024
______________________
MICHAEL R. REGIS , Sacramento, CA, pro se.
D ANIEL B ERTONI, Commercial Litigation Branch, Civil
Division, United States Department of Justice, Washing-
ton, DC, for respondent-appellee. Also represented by
BRIAN M. BOYNTON , ERIC P. BRUSKIN, P ATRICIA M.
MCCARTHY ; EVAN SCOTT G RANT , Y. K EN L EE , Office of Gen-
eral Counsel, United States Department of Veterans Af-
fairs, Washington, DC.
Case: 23-1299 Document: 52 Page: 1 Filed: 04/16/2024

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REGIS v. MCDONOUGH 2
______________________
Before P ROST , CHEN, and HUGHES , Circuit Judges.
P ER CURIAM .
Michael R. Regis appeals from a decision of the Court
of Appeals for Veterans Claims (“Veterans Court”) affirm-
ing the Board of Veterans’ Appeals (“Board”) decision to
rate his service-connected bilateral-foot disability covered
by diagnostic code 5276 at 30% for the effective period prior
to May 11, 2015. Because this appeal does not present is-
sues within our limited jurisdiction, we dismiss.
BACKGROUND
Mr. Regis served honorably from 1983 to 2003. J.A. 20.
At issue here is the Veterans Court’s decision related to the
following aspects of an April 19, 2021, Board decision:
(1) the Board rated Mr. Regis’s bilateral-foot disability un-
der diagnostic code 5276 (flatfoot) at 30% for the effective
period prior to May 11, 2015; (2) it denied separate ratings
under diagnostic code 5284 (foot injuries, other) for the flat-
foot, plantar fasciitis, and Morton’s disease symptomology
already rated under diagnostic code 5276; and (3) it in-
structed Mr. Regis to file either a VA Form 10182 or VA
Form 9 to indicate which track he intended his “argument
for an earlier effective date for the award of a total disabil-
ity rating due to [unemployability] (TDIU)” to proceed on,
but it did not adjudicate that claim. J.A. 22–23.1
1 Other aspects of the Board’s decision were either
unchallenged at the Veterans Court or remanded to the
Board for further adjudication. For example, the issue of
separate and initial ratings for other foot-related symp-
tomologies (hypermobility and loss of use) was remanded
to the Board. And the Board’s 50% rating under diagnostic
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REGIS v. MCDONOUGH 3
The Veterans Court concluded that Mr. Regis had not
demonstrated error with respect to these aspects of the
Board’s decision. Mr. Regis timely appealed. Our jurisdic-
tion is assessed under 38 U.S.C. § 7292.
D ISCUSSION
We have limited jurisdiction to review Veterans Court
decisions. Unless a constitutional issue is presented, we
“may not review (A) a challenge to a factual determination,
or (B) a challenge to a law or regulation as applied to the
facts of a particular case.” 38 U.S.C. § 7292(d)(2). “Even
when an argument is couched in terms of statutory inter-
pretation, this court lacks jurisdiction where the review the
appellant requests ultimately reduces to an application of
the law to facts.” Delisle v. McDonald, 789 F.3d 1372, 1374
(Fed. Cir. 2015) (cleaned up). Likewise, merely character-
izing an argument as presenting a constitutional issue is
insufficient to confer jurisdiction. Flores v. Nicholson, 476
F.3d 1379, 1382 (Fed. Cir. 2007).
The Veterans Court rejected Mr. Regis’s arguments re-
lated to his rating under diagnostic code 5276 for flatfoot,
plantar fasciitis, and Morton’s disease because they were
either too difficult to discern or because he had not pointed
out which symptoms he contended “were not compensated
under Diagnostic Code 5276 or how any such symptoms
could have satisfied the criteria for a separate rating under
Diagnostic Code 5284.” J.A. 12–13. Ultimately, the Veter-
ans Court “[could not] conclude that [Mr. Regis] ha[d] met
his burden of demonstrating that the Board erred,” J.A. 12,
when the Board determined that diagnostic code 5276 cov-
ered these manifestations and that additional separate rat-
ings would be duplicative.
code 5276 for the period after May 11, 2015, was unchal-
lenged. We need not outline other aspects of the Board’s
decision in further detail here.
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REGIS v. MCDONOUGH 4
Here, Mr. Regis’s arguments related to his 30% rating
under diagnostic code 5276 and lack of a separate rating
under diagnostic code 5284 are all arguments about factual
determinations or the Veterans Court’s application of law
to fact. Specifically, his arguments amount to contentions
that: (1) he should have received a 50% rating instead of a
30% rating under diagnostic code 5276 for the period prior
to May 11, 2015; and (2) the Board should have found that
his manifestations of plantar fasciitis and Morton’s disease
were sufficiently separate from his manifestations of flat-
foot such that their separate and additional rating under
diagnostic code 5284 would not have been duplicative.
These are factual issues—or, at most, issues of application
of law to fact. We recognize that Mr. Regis has couched
these arguments in terms of regulatory interpretation and
constitutional issues; however, that is insufficient to confer
jurisdiction here. See Delisle, 789 F.3d at 1374; Flores, 476
F.3d at 1382.
We also dismiss Mr. Regis’s appeal as it pertains to the
Veterans Court’s decision related to TDIU. Initially, we
note that Mr. Regis appears to be under the impression
that the Veterans Court somehow denied a TDIU claim
that the Board dismissed. See Appellant’s Br. 30. That
does not seem to be the case. The Board deferred assess-
ment of the issue of an earlier TDIU effective date (which
was raised in a correspondence that had “10182 11B” writ-
ten on it) until Mr. Regis indicated which appeal track he
intended to select by filing either VA Form 10182 or VA
Form 9. This form-request aspect of the Board’s decision
was not challenged or addressed at the Veterans Court. In-
stead, Mr. Regis raised an unclear argument related to
TDIU based on the state of the record evidence in 2010.
The Veterans Court concluded that the argument raised
was “vague and lacking in analysis,” was presented with-
out “cit[ing] any evidence in the record,” and the Veterans
Court declined to address it further. J.A. 16. Here,
Mr. Regis’s arguments are also very difficult to parse.
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REGIS v. MCDONOUGH 5
However, they generally seem to challenge a determination
the Veterans Court did not make on an issue it was not
presented with, or otherwise challenge the Veterans
Court’s conclusion that his argument there was underde-
veloped.
CONCLUSION
We have considered Mr. Regis’s remaining arguments
and find them unpersuasive. Because Mr. Regis’s appeal
does not present issues within our limited jurisdiction, we
dismiss.
DISMISSED
COSTS
No costs.
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