Winters v. Wilkie

by
Arthur served on active Army duty, 1940-1945, as a prisoner of war of the German government for 25 months. He was service-connected for several disabilities and had VA claims pending when he died in 2011. Winters pursued those as a substituted claimant and her own claims for accrued benefits as his surviving spouse. In 2013, the Board of Veterans’ Appeals denied some claims and granted service-connected benefits for others, found that the awards were inextricably intertwined with Winters’s accrued benefits claim, and remanded for initial disability ratings and to readjudicate the accrued-benefits claim. The Board determined that a subsequent letter in which Winters sought earlier dates “d[id] not constitute [a] motion for revision,” directed the letter to the Regional Office, but did not notify Winters of its determination so that the 120-day appeal period did not start to run. In 2014, the Board denied Winters’s claims for entitlement to an earlier effective date and for accrued benefits. In 2016, the Veterans Court dismissed an appeal of the 2013 decision for lack of jurisdiction and vacated the 2014 decision as premature because the 2013 decision was not final. Winters sought attorney fees and expenses under the Equal Access to Justice Act, 28 U.S.C. 2412(d) for that decision. The Federal Circuit affirmed the denial of her application. The court lacked jurisdiction to award EAJA fees relating to an appeal over which it did not have jurisdiction. With respect to the 2014 Board decision, Winters was not a “prevailing party.” View "Winters v. Wilkie" on Justia Law