Aaron W. Morris v. Douglas A. Collins

NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.
United States Court of Appeals
for the Federal Circuit
______________________
AARON W. MORRIS,
Petitioner
v.
DOUGLAS A. COLLINS,
Respondent
______________________
2025-1587
______________________
Appeal from the United States Court of Appeals for
Veterans Claims in No. 23-6038, Chief Judge Margaret
Bartley
______________________
Decided: January 29, 2026
______________________
AARON W. M ORRIS , pro se.
STEVEN J. SMITH , Commercial Litigation Branch, Civil
Division, United States Department of Justice, Washing-
ton D.C., for respondent-appellee. Also represented by
G EOFFREY M. LONG , PATRICIA M. M CCARTHY, BRETT A.
SHUMATE ; CHRISTOPHER O. ADELOYE, D EREK SCADDEN , Of-
fice of General Counsel, United States Department of Vet-
erans Affairs, Washington, DC.
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M ORRIS v. COLLINS 2
______________________
Before CHEN , CLEVENGER, and H UGHES , Circuit
Judges.
PER C URIAM.
Aaron W. Morris was awarded service-connected bene-
fits for his post-traumatic stress disorder in a March 2015
rating decision. After a series of appeals and remands re-
garding effective date and disability ratings, the Veterans
Court granted a joint motion for partial remand of an Au-
gust 2023 Board decision. Mr. Morris was represented by
counsel who consented to the joint motion.
Mr. Morris then dismissed his counsel and moved to re-
call the mandate, arguing that he did not consent to the
joint motion being filed. The Veterans Court denied his mo-
tion to recall the mandate. Mr. Morris appeals.
Because Mr. Morris forfeited any rights to appeal the
Remand Decision, which is a non-final remand order, and
the Recall Decision did not decide a separate legal issue
from the remand proceedings, we lack jurisdiction and
must dismiss.
I
Mr. Morris is a retired veteran of the U.S. Navy.
S.A. 22.1 Mr. Morris served on active duty from July 1970
to July 1972. S.A. 22. After his service, he filed for service-
connected disability for his post-traumatic stress disorder.
1 S.A. refers to the Supplemental Appendix attached to
the Respondent’s Informal Response Brief. Dkt. No. 9.
Appx refers to the documents attached to Mr. Morris’s
brief. Dkt. Nos. 5–6; see also Dkt. No. 7 (accepting page 1
of ECF No. 6 as a continuation of Respondent’s informal
opening brief).
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M ORRIS v. COLLINS 3
See S.A. 22. The Regional Office (RO) granted Mr. Morris’s
request and assigned him a 100% disability rating, the
maximum disability rating, effective February 3, 2014.
S.A. 22. In May 2015, Mr. Morris filed a notice of disagree-
ment relating to the effective date of his benefits, arguing
that he should have been assigned an effective date of
July 2009. S.A. 22. After an appeal to the Board and then
to the Veterans Court, which vacated and remanded, the
RO granted Mr. Morris an earlier effective date along with
staged ratings of 30% from October 6, 2006, and 50% from
August 22, 2011, through February 2, 2014. Resp. Br. 3.
Mr. Morris appealed the RO’s decision to the Board and re-
quested increases to the new disability ratings. S.A. 22.
The Board denied Mr. Morris’s request on August 23, 2023.
and Mr. Morris filed an appeal with the Veterans Court.
S.A. 3.
Prior to briefing at the Veterans Court, the parties,
through counsel, filed a Joint Motion for Partial Remand
(JMPR) on March 28, 2024, because they agreed that the
Board did not provide adequate reasoning for denying
Mr. Morris’s request for increased disability ratings in its
August 2023 decision. S.A. 11, 15. On April 2, 2024, the
Veterans Court granted the motion, stating that it was the
mandate of the court. S.A. 8. On April 11, 2024, Mr. Mor-
ris’s attorneys filed an application for fees under the Equal
Access to Justice Act (EAJA). 28 U.S.C. § 2412.
One week later, Mr. Morris directly contacted the Vet-
erans Court and claimed that his counsel accepted the
JMPR without his consent. S.A. 3. Accordingly, Mr. Morris
asked the court to disregard the motion and expressed that
he wished to represent himself moving forward. S.A. 3. The
Veterans Court initially returned Mr. Morris’s correspond-
ence because he was still represented by counsel, but on
May 1, 2024, Mr. Morris’s counsel moved to withdraw their
appearances. S.A. 3. On June 3, 2023, the Veterans Court
filed his correspondence and construed it as a motion to re-
call mandate; revoke the Court’s April 2, 2024, order
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M ORRIS v. COLLINS 4
granting the parties’ JMPR; and withdraw the March 28,
2024, JMPR. S.A. 4.
The Veterans Court denied Mr. Morris’s motion, find-
ing that he did not demonstrate that recall was warranted.
S.A. 4–5, 7. The Veterans Court held that Mr. Morris was
a represented party and accordingly bound by the acts of
his counsel. S.A. 5. The Veterans Court also explained that
Mr. Morris did not demonstrate any prejudice caused by
the remand because it would require the Board to re-adju-
dicate his PTSD claim across the entire appeal period and
account for the new evidence identified in the joint motion.
S.A. 6. In October 2024, Mr. Morris moved for reconsidera-
tion of the Veterans Court’s decision, and in the alterna-
tive, for a panel decision. S.A. 1, 12. The Veterans Court
granted Mr. Morris’s motion for a panel decision, but the
panel determined that the single judge order “remain[ed]
the decision of the Court.” S.A. 1–2. Mr. Morris timely ap-
pealed to this court. S.A. 13.
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 exclusive jurisdiction to review
and decide challenges to the validity or interpretation of
any statute or regulation, and to interpret constitutional
and statutory provisions if presented and necessary to the
decision. 38 U.S.C. § 7292(c). But absent a legitimate con-
stitutional issue, we cannot review challenges to the Veter-
ans Court’s factual determinations or its application of law
to fact. 38 U.S.C. § 7292(d)(2); see also Wanless, 618 F.3d
at 1336.
It is unclear whether Mr. Morris challenges the Veter-
ans Court’s April 2, 2024, remand to the Board for addi-
tional factual development (the Remand Decision) or the
Veterans Court’s September 13, 2024, denial of his motion
to recall the JMPR (the Recall Decision). For example,
Mr. Morris’s informal brief states he is seeking review of
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M ORRIS v. COLLINS 5
the Veterans Court’s September 13, 2024, decision, which
is the date of the Recall Decision. However, the substance
of Mr. Morris’s arguments appears to relate to the merits
of the Remand Decision. We address each of these decisions
individually and dismiss Mr. Morris’s appeal for lack of ju-
risdiction.
To the extent that Mr. Morris’s appeal centers around
a challenge to the merits of the Remand Decision, his argu-
ment fails for several reasons. First, Mr. Morris forfeited
his appeal rights in the parties’ Joint Motion for Partial
Remand. S.A. 18–19 (“[T]he parties agree to unequivocally
waive further Court review of and any right to appeal the
Court’s order on this joint motion”); S.A. 8. Further, even if
Mr. Morris had not already waived his right to appeal the
Remand Decision, any appeal of the Remand Decision
would be untimely. See 38 U.S.C. § 7292(a) (“[R]eview shall
be obtained by filing a notice of appeal with the [Veterans
Court] within the time and in the manner prescribed for
appeal to United States courts of appeals from United
States district courts.”); 28 U.S.C. § 2107(b) (providing a
60-day time limit to file notice of appeal when one of the
parties is the United States). Under Rule 36 of the Veter-
ans Court’s Rules of Practice and Procedure, judgment is
effective on the date of a court order granting the parties’
joint motion to remand a case. Judgment was entered for
the Remand Decision on April 2, 2024. S.A. 8. But Mr. Mor-
ris did not file the present notice of appeal until March 14,
2025, S.A. 13, which far exceeds the 60-day deadline. Be-
cause any appeal of the Veterans Court’s Remand Decision
is untimely, we lack jurisdiction to review that decision.
See Bowles v. Russell, 531 U.S. 205, 214 (2007).
Regardless of the waiver and timeliness concerns with
Mr. Morris’s appeal, the Veterans Court remanded
Mr. Morris’s case to the Board, and we generally lack juris-
diction to consider appeals from non-final orders. See Ravin
v. McDonough, 107 F.4th 1357, 1360–61 (Fed. Cir. 2024).
Mr. Morris’s appeal does not meet any of the Williams
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M ORRIS v. COLLINS 6
conditions for deviating from that rule. Williams v. Prin-
cipi, 275 F.3d 1361, 1364 (Fed. Cir. 2002) (describing ex-
ceptions to finality rule). The case was remanded so that
the Board could provide an adequate decision with its rea-
sons and bases for denying his claim. S.A. 14–20. Mr. Mor-
ris provides no explanation as to why a decision here would
obviate the need for that remand.
Turning to the Veterans Court’s Recall Decision,
Mr. Morris’s notice of appeal was timely filed as it relates
to that decision. However, we lack jurisdiction over his ap-
peal because the Recall Decision decided no legal issue that
“is separate from the remand proceedings” under Williams.
275 F.3d at 1364. To the extent that the Recall Decision
may have decided a separate issue sufficient to meet the
Williams exception, Mr. Morris’s primary argument—that
the Recall Decision conflicts with the principles of res judi-
cata—was not addressed by or presented to the Veterans
Court. Accordingly, we lack jurisdiction to consider such
arguments for the first time on appeal. Belcher v. West,
214 F.3d 1335, 1337 (Fed. Cir. 2000).
We have considered Mr. Morris’s remaining arguments
and find them unpersuasive. Because Mr. Morris forfeited
any rights to appeal the Remand Decision, the Remand De-
cision is not a final order that we have jurisdiction to con-
sider, and the Recall Decision did not decide a separate
legal issue from the remand proceedings, the appeal is dis-
missed for lack of jurisdiction.
DISMISSED
COSTS
No costs.
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