Hooper v. Collins

Case: 26-1379 Document: 19 Page: 1 Filed: 05/13/2026 NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential. United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ______________________ SETH HOOPER, Claimant-Appellant v. DOUGLAS A. COLLINS, SECRETARY OF VETERANS AFFAIRS, Respondent-Appellee ______________________ 2026-1379 ______________________ Appeal from the United States Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims in No. 20-4564, Judge Coral Wong Pi- etsch. ______________________ Decided: May 13, 2026 ______________________ SETH HOOPER, Ocean, NJ, pro se. OLIVER MCDONALD, Commercial Litigation Branch, Civil Division, United States Department of Justice, Wash- ington, DC, for respondent-appellee. Also represented by ERIC P. BRUSKIN, PATRICIA M. MCCARTHY, BRETT SHUMATE. ______________________ Before DYK, STOLL, and STARK, Circuit Judges. Case: 26-1379 Document: 19 Page: 2 Filed: 05/13/2026 2 HOOPER v. COLLINS PER CURIAM. Seth A. Hooper appeals a final decision of the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims (“Veterans Court”) denying his motion to recall the mandate issued on February 15, 2022, in connection with an earlier case brought by Mr. Hooper. See Hooper v. McDonough, 2021 WL 5367885 (Vet. App. Nov. 18, 2021) (“Hooper 2021”). Mr. Hooper’s theory is that, in later decisions, both the Board of Veterans’ Ap- peals (“Board”) and the Veterans Court concluded that a January 2008 rating decision was final in contravention of the Veterans Court’s supposed conclusion in Hooper 2021 that the 2008 rating decision was not final. The Veterans Court denied Mr. Hooper’s motion based on its determina- tion that Hooper 2021 did not decide that the 2008 rating decision was nonfinal. Because the Veterans Court did not err in its interpretation of Hooper 2021, we affirm. I Mr. Hooper served several tours on active duty be- tween September 2000 and November 2011. In February 2007, after a VA general examination and dental evalua- tion, the VA Regional Office (“RO”) inferred a claim for ben- efits for dental trauma sustained during Mr. Hooper’s active service from March 2004 to August 2005. In a Jan- uary 2008 rating decision, the RO denied benefits for den- tal trauma. Mr. Hooper did not appeal that decision. Years later, in May 2019, Mr. Hooper filed a claim for benefits for traumatic brain injury (“TBI”), which was granted in January 2020, with an effective date of April 9, 2019, the date of his intent to file his claim. Mr. Hooper appealed that determination to the Board with the goal of obtaining an earlier effective date of August 24, 2005. In Mr. Hooper’s view, he was entitled to the earlier date be- cause it was the effective date provided for his previous dental trauma claim, which he contended was intertwined with his claim for TBI because both injuries arose from the same combat incident during service. When the Board Case: 26-1379 Document: 19 Page: 3 Filed: 05/13/2026 HOOPER v. COLLINS 3 denied an earlier effective date, in part because Mr. Hooper had not appealed the RO’s January 2008 rating decision, Mr. Hooper appealed to the Veterans Court. Mr. Hooper argued that the RO’s January 2008 rating decision was not final. The Veterans Court in the Hooper 2021 opinion con- cluded that remand was required “because Mr. Hooper’s challenges to the finality of the decision denying him ben- efits for a dental disability and his request to reopen his claim for a dental disability may be pending and because the Board made no findings to explain whether his TBI claim could be construed as part of his original claim for a dental disability.” Hooper 2021, 2021 WL 5367885, at *4 (emphasis added). On remand, the Board again denied Mr. Hooper’s re- quest for an earlier effective date. Mr. Hooper appealed and, this time in 2023, the Veterans Court once again va- cated and remanded, finding that the Board had failed to provide an adequate explanation for its decision. In the ensuing remand, the Board once again denied Mr. Hooper an earlier effective date; subsequently, in 2025, the Veter- ans Court yet again found the Board’s explanation to be inadequate and vacated and remanded a third time. On that remand, the Board once more rejected an earlier effec- tive date for Mr. Hooper’s TBI – and that decision is cur- rently pending on appeal to the Veterans Court. See Hooper v. Collins, No. 25-7532 (Vet. App.). 1 1 Mr. Hooper also filed a petition for a writ of man- damus with the Veterans Court, asking it to compel “im- mediate[]” adjudication of his appeal at the Board. See Hooper v. Collins, 2025 WL 2717386 at *1 (Vet. App. Sept. 24, 2025). The Veterans Court denied the petition and, in an opinion issued on April 21, 2026, we affirmed. See Hooper v. Collins, 2026 WL 1077243 (Fed. Cir. 2026). Case: 26-1379 Document: 19 Page: 4 Filed: 05/13/2026 4 HOOPER v. COLLINS On December 2, 2025, Mr. Hooper filed a motion in the Veterans Court requesting that it recall the mandate it is- sued in connection with its Hooper 2021 opinion; that is, the first appeal that remanded the issue of the effective date of his TBI to the Board. In his motion, Mr. Hooper argued the Veterans Court’s Hooper 2021 decision “made a binding determination that a January 2008 regional office (RO) decision [concerning dental trauma had not yet] be- come final” (based on the language quoted above), and the subsequent Veterans Court decisions (in 2023 and 2025, each remanding the issue of TBI effective date to the Board) 2 “contradicted” that binding determination, requir- ing that they be vacated. SAppx1-2, 4. 3 In an order dated December 5, 2025, the Veterans Court denied Mr. Hooper’s motion. It reasoned that its Hooper 2021 decision “certainly did not find that the Janu- ary 2008 decision was not final,” as “the Court found only Additionally, Mr. Hooper has pressed for an earlier ef- fective date for his TBI in a separate case, involving a claim for service connection for migraines and post-traumatic stress disorder. See Hooper v. Collins, 2025 WL 2484992 at *1 n.1 (Vet. App. Aug. 29, 2025). The Veterans Court refused to consider TBI-related arguments in that proceed- ing. See id. In an opinion issued on March 16, 2026, we affirmed-in-part and dismissed-in-part. See Hooper v. Col- lins, 2026 WL 733489, at *2 (Fed. Cir. Mar. 16, 2026) (“Be- cause the TBI claim has been the subject of a separate claim stream arising out of the separate 2020 RO Decision, we do not have jurisdiction to hear his appeal with respect to his TBI benefits.”). 2 See Hooper v. McDonough, 2023 WL 5436388 at *4 (Vet. App. Aug. 24, 2023); Hooper v. Collins, 2025 WL 1546948 (Vet. App. May 30, 2025). 3 “SAppx” refers to the Supplemental Appendix filed with Appellee’s Informal Response Brief, ECF No. 11. Case: 26-1379 Document: 19 Page: 5 Filed: 05/13/2026 HOOPER v. COLLINS 5 that the Board did not address Mr. Hooper’s arguments concerning finality, which required remand.” SAppx4-5. Mr. Hooper now appeals the Veterans Court’s denial of his motion. II Our jurisdiction over appeals from the Veterans Court is limited. See Conyers v. McDonough, 91 F.4th 1167, 1170 (Fed. Cir. 2024). “We have exclusive jurisdiction to review and decide any challenge to the validity of any statute or regulation or any interpretation thereof brought under [38 U.S.C.] § 7292, and to interpret constitutional and stat- utory provisions, to the extent presented and necessary to a decision.” Gazelle v. Shulkin, 868 F.3d 1006, 1009 (Fed. Cir. 2017) (cleaned up). “Except to the extent that an ap- peal . . . presents a constitutional issue, [we] may not re- view (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). III Mr. Hooper contends that the Veterans Court’s reading of its Hooper 2021 opinion, and its refusal to treat certain facts recited in it as binding on the Board, was legally er- roneous under the mandate rule, law-of-the-case doctrine, and 38 C.F.R. § 3.156(c). See Appellant’s Informal Br. at 6 (alleging Veterans Court “refus[ed] to acknowledge the op- erative findings in the 2021 opinion”); Appellant’s Informal Reply Br. at 3 (identifying questions on appeal as “[w]hether the Veteran’s Court misinterpreted the scope of its own prior mandate” and whether it “disregard[ed] fac- tual predicates” in its Hooper 2021 decision). We have ju- risdiction to review the Veterans Court’s interpretation of its Hooper 2021 decision. See generally Laitram Corp. v. NEC Corp., 115 F.3d 947, 950 (Fed. Cir. 1997) (“[T]he interpretation by an appellate court of its own mandate is properly considered a question of law, reviewable de novo.”). Case: 26-1379 Document: 19 Page: 6 Filed: 05/13/2026 6 HOOPER v. COLLINS Mr. Hooper has not persuaded us that the Veterans Court committed any error in interpreting its Hooper 2021 decision. To the contrary, the Veterans Court’s conclusion that Hooper 2021 remanded for the Board to consider the finality question, and that Hooper 2021 did not itself deter- mine that the Board’s earlier decision was final, is plainly correct. See Hooper 2021 at *4 (“[Mr. Hooper’s] request to reopen his claim for a dental disability may be pending.”) (emphasis added). Accordingly, the Veterans Court did not err in determining that it had not conclusively established the finality of Mr. Hooper’s claim for service connected den- tal trauma in Hooper 2021. IV We have considered Mr. Hooper’s remaining argu- ments and find them without merit. For the foregoing rea- sons, we affirm. AFFIRMED COSTS Each party to bear its own costs.