Jesus Rodriguez, Jr. v. Denis McDonough, Secretary of Veterans Affairs

NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.
United States Court of Appeals
for the Federal Circuit
______________________
JESUS RODRIGUEZ, JR.,
Claimant-Appellant
v.
DENIS MCDONOUGH, SECRETARY OF
VETERANS AFFAIRS,
Respondent-Appellee
______________________
2024-1347
______________________
Appeal from the United States Court of Appeals for
Veterans Claims in No. 22-5348, Chief Judge Margaret C.
Bartley, Judge Michael P. Allen, Judge Scott Laurer.
______________________
Decided: November 13, 2024
______________________
JESUS RODRIGUEZ, JR., San Antonio, TX, pro se.
AUGUSTUS JEFFREY GOLDEN, Commercial Litigation
Branch, Civil Division, United States Department of
Justice, Washington, DC, for respondent-appellee. Also
represented by BRIAN M. BOYNTON, ERIC P. BRUSKIN,
PATRICIA M. MCCARTHY.
______________________
Case: 24-1347 Document: 17 Page: 1 Filed: 11/13/2024

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RODRIGUEZ v. MCDONOUGH 2
Before DYK, CHEN, and HUGHES, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM.
Jesus Rodriguez, Jr., seeks to receive earlier effective
dates for grants of service connection for post-traumatic
stress disorder (PTSD) and bilateral hearing loss, to reopen
other previously denied claims for service connection, and
to receive service connection for residuals of a fractured
right toe. The Board of Veterans’ Appeals (Board) denied
those claims, and the United States Court of Appeals for
Veterans Claims (Veterans Court) affirmed. Rodriguez v.
McDonough, No. 22-5348, 2023 WL 4285967, at *1 (Vet.
App. June 30, 2023) (Decision). Mr. Rodriguez moved for
the full court to review that decision, and the Veterans
Court denied that motion. Rodriguez v. McDonough, No.
22-5348, 2023 WL 7011736, at *1 (Vet. App. Oct. 25, 2023).
Mr. Rodriguez appeals pro se. For the following reasons,
we affirm-in-part and dismiss-in-part.
I.
Mr. Rodriguez served in the U.S. Marine Corps from
March 1969 to March 1973 and from February 1981 to
February 1984. Decision, 2023 WL 4285967, at *1.
Between 2009 and 2012, Mr. Rodriguez filed claims for
service connection for hearing loss, lumbar spine strain,
left leg radiculopathy, diabetes, cataracts, and PTSD. Id.
The regional office granted Mr. Rodriguez service
connection for hearing loss but denied the remaining
claims. Id.
In 2017, Mr. Rodriguez sought to reopen the previously
denied claims for service connection and to seek service
connection for residuals of a fractured right middle toe. Id.
After a series of examinations conducted in April 2017, the
regional office granted service connection for PTSD,
increased his hearing loss evaluation, denied service
connection for residuals of a fractured middle toe, and
declined to reopen the previously denied claims for service
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RODRIGUEZ v. MCDONOUGH 3
connection. Id. In its decision, the regional office noted
that it received service records for Mr. Rodriguez in March
2017. Id.
Mr. Rodriguez appealed the regional office’s decision.
Id. at *2. After an appeal to the Board, an appeal to the
Veterans Court, and a remand to the Board, the case again
came before the Veterans Court, which affirmed. Id. at *2,
*7.
The Veterans Court noted that even under a liberal
construction of his brief, Mr. Rodriguez failed to explain
how the Board erred. See id. at *3, *5–7. Nonetheless, the
Veterans Court carefully examined the Board’s decision
and found only one error—a failure to consider whether
Mr. Rodriguez’s service records required reconsideration,
under 38 C.F.R. § 3.156(c), of the denial of service
connection for PTSD in 2013. Id. at *4. But the Veterans
Court found that this error was not prejudicial because the
regional office denied service connection for PTSD in 2013
due to a lack of a confirmed diagnosis at that time, and
“service records spanning 1969 to 1973 and 1981 to 1984
could not provide evidence of a current [PTSD] diagnosis in
2013.” Id.
Mr. Rodriguez moved for the full court to review the
single-judge decision, and the Veterans Court denied that
motion. Rodriguez, 2023 WL 7011736, at *1.
Mr. Rodriguez then appealed to us.
II.
Our “jurisdiction to review decisions by the Veterans
Court is limited.” Wanless v. Shinseki, 618 F.3d 1333, 1336
(Fed. Cir. 2010). We have jurisdiction to “decide all
relevant questions of law, including interpreting
constitutional and statutory provisions.” 38 U.S.C.
§ 7292(d)(1). Absent a constitutional issue, however, we
lack the jurisdiction to “review (A) a challenge to a factual
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RODRIGUEZ v. MCDONOUGH 4
determination, or (B) a challenge to a law or regulation as
applied to the facts of a particular case.” Id. § 7292(d)(2).
Consistent with his briefing before the Veterans Court,
Mr. Rodriguez fails to explain—even under a liberal
construction of his brief—why he believes the Veterans
Court erred. The government parsed through
Mr. Rodriguez’s brief to ferret out what arguments he may
have attempted to make. We lack jurisdiction to hear most
of those arguments, and we affirm the remaining issue.
In his informal brief, Mr. Rodriguez indicated that he
believes the Veterans Court erred in deciding the validity
or interpretation of a statute or a regulation. He appears
to raise three arguments.
First, Mr. Rodriguez refers to Frankel v. Derwinski,
1 Vet. App. 23, 25–26 (1990), which the Veterans Court
cited as support for its determination that single-judge
disposition was appropriate for Mr. Rodriguez’s case. See
Decision, 2023 WL 4285967, at *2. Frankel is not a statute
or regulation, so this argument fails to identify an error
that the Veterans Court made in deciding the validity or
interpretation of a statue or regulation. To the extent
Mr. Rodriguez challenges the validity of single-judge
dispositions, the Veterans Court “may hear cases by judges
sitting alone or in panels, as determined pursuant to
procedures established by the [Veterans] Court.” 38 U.S.C.
§ 7254. Here, the Veterans Court determined that this case
could be decided by a single judge, and we lack jurisdiction
to review that application of the law to the facts of this case,
38 U.S.C. § 7292(d)(2).
Second, Mr. Rodriguez mentions 38 C.F.R. § 3.307 and
the presumption of soundness—likely referring to
38 C.F.R. § 3.304(b), which is titled presumption of
soundness. Neither of those regulations was discussed by
the Veterans Court. Mr. Rodriguez therefore cannot be
challenging the Veterans Court’s interpretation of those
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RODRIGUEZ v. MCDONOUGH 5
regulations, and he provides no argument as to why those
regulations are invalid.
Third, Mr. Rodriguez identifies 38 U.S.C. § 7261. The
Veterans Court cited this statute for the proposition that
even though the Board erred in failing to reconsider
Mr. Rodriguez’s newly associated service records, that
error was harmless because those service records could not
provide evidence of a PTSD diagnosis in 2013.1 See
Decision, 2023 WL 4285967, at *4. The Veterans Court did
not interpret this statute; it merely applied it to the facts
of this case to find that there was no prejudicial error. And
Mr. Rodriguez does not argue that the statute is invalid.
Mr. Rodriguez also contends that the Veterans Court
erred in deciding constitutional issues. He asserts that the
Veterans Court “erred in concluding” that the Decision “did
not involve an Article III of the U.S. Constitution case and
controversy theory.” Appellant’s Informal Br. 2 (emphasis
omitted) (citing 38 U.S.C. § 1110). It is not clear what
Mr. Rodriguez means by this argument as the Veterans
Court did not discuss either Article III or 38 U.S.C. § 1110.
As we have recognized in a different one of Mr. Rodriguez’s
cases, “appellants [forfeit] any arguments that they do not
adequately develop.” Rodriguez v. McDonough, No. 22-
2081, 2022 WL 16828738, at *3 (Fed. Cir. Nov. 9, 2022) (per
curiam) (nonprecedential) (citing Rodriguez v. Dep’t of
Veterans Affs., 8 F.4th 1290, 1305 (Fed. Cir. 2021)).
1 The Veterans Court mistakenly cited 38 U.S.C.
§ 7261(c)(2), and Mr. Rodriguez appears to have copied that
citation. The correct citation for the prejudicial error rule
is 38 U.S.C. § 7261(b)(2).
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RODRIGUEZ v. MCDONOUGH 6
Because Mr. Rodriguez failed to adequately develop these
arguments, they are forfeited.2
Mr. Rodriguez next indicated in his informal brief that
the Veterans Court failed to correctly decide two other
issues.
First, he appears to assert that the Veterans Court
misinterpreted Tadlock v. McDonough, 5 F.4th 1327 (Fed.
Cir. 2021), and failed to follow Hart v. Mansfield, 21 Vet.
App. 505 (2007). The Veterans Court quoted portions of
these cases for the propositions that an error can be
harmless and that the service records were not necessary
to determine the present level of disability. See Decision,
2023 WL 4285967, at *4–5. We discern no error in the
Veterans Court applying the teachings of those cases to
Mr. Rodriguez’s appeal. We therefore affirm on this issue.
Second, Mr. Rodriguez cites 38 C.F.R. § 3.102. That
regulation requires reasonable doubt to be resolved in favor
of the claimant, so Mr. Rodriguez presumably argues that
the Veterans Court should have resolved in his favor any
reasonable doubt about whether his service records from
1969 to 1973 and 1981 to 1984 were relevant to
determining if he had a current PTSD diagnosis in 2013.
Mr. Rodriguez fails to explain why decades-old documents
could provide evidence about Mr. Rodriguez’s current
medical condition. We lack jurisdiction to review the
Veterans Court’s factual finding that there was no
reasonable doubt in this case. 38 U.S.C. § 7292(d)(2).
Mr. Rodriguez’s last argument is that the Veterans
Court’s order denying full court review constituted a
Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act
(RICO) conspiracy. Mr. Rodriguez fails to support this
2 To the extent Mr. Rodriguez is arguing that either
the Board or the Veterans Court refused to consider his
appeal, we note that they did address his appeal.
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RODRIGUEZ v. MCDONOUGH 7
claim. In any event, we cannot hear it because “RICO
violations do not fall within our limited jurisdiction.”
Fromal v. Carrico, 25 F. App’x 851, at *1 (Fed. Cir. 2001).
III.
We have considered Mr. Rodriguez’s remaining
arguments and find them unpersuasive. For the foregoing
reasons, we affirm-in-part and dismiss-in-part.
AFFIRMED-IN-PART AND DISMISSED-IN-PART
COSTS
No costs.
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