Hal H. Williams v. Robert L. Wilkie

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR VETERANS CLAIMS

No. 16-3988

HAL H. WILLIAMS, APPELLANT,

V.

ROBERT L. WILKIE,

SECRETARY OF VETERANS AFFAIRS, APPELLEE.

On Appeal from the Board of Veterans' Appeals

(Argued October 23, 2018 Decided March 19, 2019)

Meghan Gentile, with whom Katie K. Molter and Harold H. Hoffman, III, were on the

brief, all of Arlington, Virginia, for the appellant.

Timothy G. Joseph, with whom James M. Byrne, General Counsel; Mary Ann Flynn, Chief

Counsel; and Selket N. Cottle, Deputy Chief Counsel, were on the brief, all of Washington, D.C.,

for the appellee.

Before BARTLEY, TOTH, and FALVEY, Judges.

BARTLEY, Judge: Veteran Hal H. Williams appeals through counsel an August 26, 2016,

Board of Veterans' Appeals (Board) decision finding no clear and unmistakable error (CUE) in a

January 1970 rating decision that denied service connection for residuals of a left knee injury; and

denying an effective date earlier than May 18, 2009, for the grant of service connection for

degenerative joint disease (DJD) of the left knee. Record (R.) at 2-11.1 This appeal, over which

the Court has jurisdiction pursuant to 38 U.S.C. §§ 7252(a) and 7266(a), was referred to a panel

of the Court, with oral argument, to address (1) whether the pre-amendment version of 38 C.F.R.

§ 20.1304(a)2 applies to appeals returned to the Board by the agency of original jurisdiction (AOJ)

following a Board remand; and (2) if so, whether that provision deprives appellants of their

constitutional right to due process or is otherwise invalid on its face or as applied to Mr. Williams.

1

For ease of reference, record cites include the supplemental materials submitted by the parties on October

11 and November 1, 2018.

2

Effective February 19, 2019, VA amended § 20.1304(a) to comply with the widespread appeals processing

changes mandated by the Veterans Appeals Improvement and Modernization Act of 2017 (VAIMA), Pub. L. No. 115-

55131 Stat. 1105 (Aug. 23, 2017). See VA Claims and Appeals Modernization, 84 Fed. Reg. 138 (final rule) (Jan. 18,

2019); VA Claims and Appeals Modernization, 84 Fed. Reg. 2,449 (notification of effective date) (Feb. 7, 2019).

Because we hold that § 20.1304(a) does not apply to appeals returned to the Board by the AOJ

following a Board remand, we affirm the August 2016 Board decision and reserve the second

question for another day.

I. FACTS

Mr. Williams served on active duty in the U.S. Army from August 1963 to August 1966.

R. at 625. In May 1969, he filed a claim for service connection for injuries to both knees. R. at

555-58. In January 1970, a VA regional office (RO) granted service connection for a right knee

injury but denied service connection for a left knee injury. R. at 472. The veteran did not appeal

that denial, and the decision became final.

The current appeal stems from a May 2009 request to reopen the left knee injury claim. R.

at 218. After initially denying reopening in September 2009, R. at 189-96, the RO in December

2010 reopened the claim, granted service connection for left knee DJD, and assigned a 10%

disability evaluation effective November 18, 2009, R. at 742-50. Mr. Williams timely filed a

Notice of Disagreement (NOD) as to the assigned effective date, R. at 134, 136, and, in July 2012,

the RO granted an earlier effective date of May 18, 2009, the date of the request to reopen, R. at

120-28. Later in July 2012, the veteran contacted the RO and asserted that he was entitled to an

effective date back to the date of the initial denial of the left knee claim in January 1970. R. at

116. Three days later, the RO issued a Statement of the Case (SOC) denying an earlier effective

date. R. at 104-15. Mr. Williams timely filed a Substantive Appeal in September 2012. R. at 99.

On January 3, 2013, Mr. Williams's veterans service organization (VSO) representative

submitted to the RO a VA Form 646, Statement of Accredited Representative in Appealed Case,

in which he checked the box indicating that he "rest[ed] the appeal on the answer to the [SOC] and

the hearing on appeal (if conducted)" and had "no further argument" as to the left knee effective

date issue. R. at 90. Six days later, the RO completed a VA Form 8, Certification of Appeal, R.

at 89, and, on January 18, 2013, the Board notified Mr. Williams that it had received his appeal,

R. at 87.

In October 2014, the Board advanced the appeal on the docket due to the veteran's

advanced age, informing him that it would "take prompt action to issue a decision in th[e] case."

R. at 80. Later that month, the Board remanded the case, because it determined that the veteran

had reasonably raised a theory of entitlement to an earlier effective date based on CUE in the

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January 1970 rating decision, which had not yet been addressed by the RO. R. at 75-79. The

Board also remanded the earlier effective date claim because it was inextricably intertwined with

the CUE matter. R. at 77.

On December 30, 2015, the RO issued a Supplemental SOC (SSOC) continuing to deny

an earlier effective date for the grant of service connection for left knee DJD. R. at 49-65. The

SSOC cover letter notified the veteran that he had 30 days to submit additional evidence or

argument related to that issue or that he could elect to waive that 30-day period if he had nothing

further to submit. R. at 49.

On January 8, 2016, the RO issued a decision dated December 29, 2015, that found no

CUE in the January 1970 RO decision. R. at 25-48. The cover letter to that decision included

general information on how to appeal the RO's determination and how to submit additional

evidence to the RO, without any express date limitation. R. at 25-30.

On January 20, 2016, Mr. Williams submitted a response to the December 2015 SSOC

indicating that he had "no other information or evidence to submit" as to the left knee effective

date issue and instructing the RO to "return my case to the Board [] for further appellate

consideration as soon as possible." R. at 23.

On June 20, 2016, a decision review office (DRO) noted that the case was "ready to certify

to the Board" pending receipt of a completed VA Form 646 from Mr. Williams's VSO

representative. R. at 22. The VSO representative returned the completed Form 646 later that day

and checked the box indicating that Mr. Williams "rest[ed] the appeal on the answer to the [SOC]"

and had "no further argument" as to the left knee effective date issue, including the CUE matter.

R. at 21. Three days later, the RO completed a VA Form 8 returning the case to the Board. R. at

17-20.

Thereafter, on July 15, 2016, the Board sent Mr. Williams a letter informing him that his

appeal had resumed its place on the docket, that it would be "handled expeditiously" because it

had been previously remanded by the Board, and that the Board would "make every effort to decide

[the] appeal as quickly as possible." R. at 14. The letter further stated:

Please note that you have 90 days from the date of this letter or until the Board

issues a decision in your appeal (whichever comes first) to request a change in

representation or to submit additional argument or evidence, if you elect to do so.

Any such request or submission must be sent directly to the Board. See generally

38 C.F.R. § 20.1304. . . .

Id.

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Forty-two days later, on August 26, 2016, the Board issued the decision currently on

appeal, which found no CUE in the January 1970 RO decision and denied entitlement to an

effective date earlier than May 18, 2009, for the grant of service connection for left knee DJD. R.

at 2-11. This appeal followed.

II. ANALYSIS

The dispute in this case arises from the fact that the Board issued the decision on appeal 42

days, rather than after expiration of 90 days, after notifying Mr. Williams that it had received his

case back from the RO following the October 2014 Board remand. The veteran argues that the

Board erred in relying on § 20.1304(a) because that regulation is unconstitutional on its face and

as applied to him, constitutes an arbitrary and capricious interpretation of governing statutes, and

violates Kutscherousky v. West, 12 Vet.App. 369 (1999) and its progeny. Appellant's Brief (Br.)

at 11-25. The Secretary responds that § 20.1304(a) did not apply to the veteran's appeal in the

summer of 2016, that no legal authority required the Board to provide Mr. Williams with a set time

period in which to submit additional evidence and argument after it received his case back from

the RO, and that the veteran has otherwise failed to carry his burden of demonstrating that the

Board's improper citation to § 20.1304(a) in its July 2016 notice letter prejudiced him in any way.

Secretary's Br. at 6-17. For the following reasons, the Court agrees with the Secretary.

A. Section 20.1304(a) Does Not Apply to Appeals Returned to the Board

After a Remand to the AOJ.

Mr. Williams first challenges the validity of § 20.1304(a) on constitutional and non-

constitutional grounds. Appellant's Br. at 11-23. However, the Court need not address those

challenges because § 20.1304(a) did not apply to his case when it returned to the Board following

the October 2014 Board remand.

To determine the circumstances in which § 20.1304(a) applies, we must first look to the

language of that regulation, the plain meaning of which can be derived from its text and structure.

See Good Samaritan Hosp. v. Shalala, 508 U.S. 402, 409 (1993); Petitti v. McDonald, 27 Vet.App.

415, 422 (2015). "If the plain meaning of the regulation is clear from its language, that meaning

controls and that is the end of the matter." Frost v. Shulkin, 29 Vet.App. 131, 137 (2017); see

Brown v. Gardner, 513 U.S. 115, 120 (1994).

The pre-amendment version of section 20.1304(a) provided, in pertinent part:

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An appellant and his or her representative, if any, will be granted a period of 90

days following the mailing of notice to them that an appeal has been certified to the

Board for appellate review and that the appellate record has been transferred to the

Board, or until the date the appellate decision is promulgated by the Board[],

whichever comes first, during which they may submit a request for a personal

hearing, additional evidence, or a request for a change in representation.

38 C.F.R. § 20.1304(a) (2018).

The regulation unequivocally indicated that it applied only "following the mailing of notice

to [the appellant and his or her representative] that an appeal has been certified to the Board for

appellate review and that the appellate record has been transferred to the Board." That notion was

echoed in a companion notice regulation, 38 C.F.R. § 19.36 (2018), which directed that the period

specified in pre-amendment § 20.1304(a) for submitting additional evidence and argument to the

Board commenced "[w]hen an appeal is certified to the Board[] for appellate review and the

appellate record is transferred to the Board." See also Prickett v. Nicholson, 20 Vet.App. 370, 382

(2006) (explaining that §§ 19.36 and 20.1304 apply "after an appeal is certified to the Board"),

aff'd sub nom. Prickett v. Mansfield, 257 F. App'x 288 (Fed. Cir. 2007). The plain language of

these regulations therefore reflected that the triggering event for application of § 20.1304(a) was

the mailing of notice that an appeal had been certified and transferred to the Board. See Sutton v.

Brown, 9 Vet.App. 553, 567 (1996) (identifying "the post-certification and post-transfer 90-day

period" as the time period relevant to § 20.1304).

An appeal is certified to the Board only once, following receipt of the Substantive Appeal.

Compare 38 C.F.R. § 19.35 (2018) ("Following receipt of a timely Substantive Appeal, the [AOJ]

will certify the case to the Board[]."), with 38 C.F.R. § 19.38 (2018) (directing that an appeal that

was certified to the Board and then remanded to the AOJ be "returned to the Board," without

certification, after the AOJ completes development and issues an SSOC). Subsequent transfers of

the same appeal to the Board are not certifications, see 38 C.F.R. § 19.38, even if they are

accompanied by a completed VA Form 8, see 38 C.F.R. § 19.35 (stating that certification "is

accomplished by the completion of VA Form 8," but noting that "certification is used for

administrative purposes" only).

Indeed, prior to the VAIMA amendments, a different set of regulations in parts 19 and 20

of the Code of Federal Regulations—§§ 19.31(c), 19.38, and 20.302(c)—expressly applied to the

post-certification transfer of an appeal to the Board after a remand to the AOJ, the situation at issue

here. Cf. Cantrell v. Shulkin, 28 Vet.App. 382, 390 (2017) (examining surrounding regulations to

5

elucidate the disputed regulation's meaning). Those regulations directed the AOJ to, inter alia,

issue an SSOC concerning any additional development conducted in accordance with a Board

remand that does not fully resolve the case, 38 C.F.R. §§ 19.31(c) (2018) and 19.38 (2018), and

provide "a period of 30 days from the date of mailing of the [SSOC] . . . for response," 38 C.F.R.

§ 20.302(c) (2018). Section 19.38 further stated that, "[f]ollowing the 30-day period allowed for

response to the [SSOC] . . . , the case will be returned to the Board for further appellate processing

unless the appeal is withdrawn or review of the response to the [SSOC] results in the allowance of

all benefits sought on appeal." Neither those regulations, nor any other, mandated that the Board

provide the claimant, as a matter of right, additional time to submit additional evidence and

argument after the appeal had been returned to the Board.

Mr. Williams concedes that "certification only occurs once," but he argues that pre-

amendment § 20.1304(a) nevertheless applied to his case when it was returned to the Board

following the October 2014 remand because, "[a]s long as an appeal is certified, § 20.1304 applies

every time the appellate record is transferred to the Board." Reply Br. at 5-6. Although the Court

agrees that an appeal remanded to the AOJ does not need to be certified again to be automatically

returned to the Board if the RO does not grant benefits in full, we do not agree that § 20.1304(a)

is triggered anew each time an appeal is returned to the Board. As noted above, the time period

set forth in pre-amendment § 20.1304(a) for submitting additional evidence and argument without

needing to show good cause begins to run "following the mailing of notice . . . that an appeal has

been certified to the Board for appellate review and that the appellate record has been transferred

to the Board." Because certification occurs only once and an appeal is not recertified each time it

returns to the Board, any notice that the Board provides to an appellant and his or her representative

when an appeal is returned to the Board from the AOJ after a Board remand is not "notice that an

appeal has been certified to the Board for appellate review"—i.e., the triggering event for

application of § 20.1304(a). Rather, it is notice that the appeal has been returned to the Board for

appellate consideration and, thus, does not implicate § 20.1304(a).

Contrary to the veteran's contention, Appellant's Br. at 20-22, § 20.1304(c) does not expand

the applicability of § 20.1304(a) or otherwise contradict our conclusion as to that provision's

applicability. Section 20.1304(c) simply specifies that evidence received by the Board pursuant

to § 20.1304—either during the period specified in subparagraph (a) or with a showing of good

cause after that period, see 38 C.F.R. § 20.1304(b)—must be referred to the AOJ for review unless

6

that right is waived or "or unless the Board determines that the benefit or benefits to which the

evidence relates may be fully allowed on appeal without such referral." 38 C.F.R. § 20.1304(c).

Nothing in § 20.1304(c) speaks to the applicability of § 20.1304(a), and it is therefore inapposite.

Mr. Williams's reliance on Kutscherousky and its progeny is similarly misplaced. See, e.g.,

Appellant's Br. at 23-25; Reply Br. at 1-3, 7-8. In Kutscherousky, 12 Vet.App. at 372, the Court

held that, whenever the Court remands an appeal to the Board, an appellant is entitled, as a matter

of right, to a period of 90 days after mailing of the Board's post-Court-remand notice in which to

submit additional evidence and argument without a showing of good cause. Although the Court

looked to § 20.1304(a) to craft that holding, its decision was ultimately based on Board Chairman

Memorandum 01-95-06 because no regulation, including § 20.1304(a), addressed the submission

of additional evidence and argument to the Board following a Court remand. Id.; see Carter v.

Shinseki, 26 Vet.App. 534, 537 n.4 (2014) (acknowledging that § 20.1304 does not, on its face,

apply to remands from the Court to the Board), overruled on other grounds sub nom. by Carter v.

McDonald, 794 F.3d 1342 (Fed. Cir. 2015). The Court in Kutscherousky likened the post-Court-

remand notice that the Board sent pursuant to Board Chairman Memorandum 01-95-06 with the

post-certification notice that it sent pursuant to § 20.1304(a) and indicated that the mailing of the

former would trigger a 90-day period for submitting evidence and argument "under the parameters

set forth in []§§ 19.37[ and] 20.1304(a)." 12 Vet.App. at 372-73. However, the Court did not

actually apply § 20.1304(a) in Kutscherousky, as evidenced by the fact that the Court mandated

that the Board provide an appellant a full 90 days to submit additional evidence and argument after

mailing the post-Court-remand notice, 12 Vet.App. at 372, instead of using the conditional period

of "90 days . . . or until the date the appellate decision is promulgated by the Board[], whichever

comes first," set forth in § 20.1304(a). See Clark v. O'Rourke, 30 Vet.App. 92, 97 (2018)

(contrasting the "liberalizing nature of Kutscherousky's holding" that an appellant has 90 days to

submit evidence and argument following a Court remand with § 20.1304(a)'s conditional time

period for doing so following certification and initial transfer of the appellate record to the Board).

Nor did the Court in Kutscherousky suggest that § 20.1304(a) applied to a situation other

than when the AOJ certifies an appeal to the Board and initially transfers the appellate record to

the Board. The Court merely looked to § 20.1304(a) for guidance on how the Board dealt with the

submission of evidence and argument in other contexts, particularly given the lack of a regulation

that directly addressed the submission of evidence and argument following a Court remand to the

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Board. See Kutscherousky, 12 Vet.App. at 372. In this respect, Mr. Williams's case is quite

different from Kutscherousky because here there are regulations—§§ 19.38 and § 20.302(c)—that

expressly govern the submission of additional evidence and argument following a remand by the

Board to the AOJ. Given that those regulations set forth the process to be followed in Mr.

Williams's precise situation, it would be inappropriate for the Court to ignore those germane

authorities and impose on the Board a different and contrary process contained in an inapplicable

regulation, as the veteran requests. See Payne v. Derwinski, 1 Vet.App. 85, 87 (1990) (declaring

that the Board "is not free to ignore regulations which the VA has adopted" and "must apply [any

relevant] regulation or give the reasons and bases explaining why it is not applicable").

Moreover, even if Kutscherousky could be read more broadly to expand the scope of

§ 20.1304(a)—which, to be clear, it cannot—the reasoning underlying Kutscherousky would not

justify applying that regulation to appeals returned to the Board after a remand to the AOJ. The

Court in Kutscherousky explained that providing an appellant with 90 days to submit additional

evidence and argument to the Board after a Court remand was "consistent with the shift of the

claim upon remand by the Court from the Court's adversarial process back to the nonadversarial,

ex parte adjudication process carried out on behalf of the Secretary." 12 Vet.App. at 372. But no

such shift occurred here when the RO returned Mr. Williams's appeal to the Board; to the contrary,

the appeal remained, at all relevant times, in VA's nonadversarial system. The Court's reasoning

in Kutscherousky therefore undermines the veteran's reliance on that case.

The Court's decision in Clark also undercuts Mr. Williams's argument. In Clark, the Court

clarified that Kutscherousky mandates that, when an appeal is returned to the Board via a Court

remand, an appellant is entitled to a full 90 days to submit additional evidence and argument

without a showing of good cause. 30 Vet.App. at 97. In so holding, the Court distinguished

Kutscherousky from cases governed by § 20.1304(a), which provides either 90 days or until the

Board issues its decisions, whichever comes first, to submit such evidence and argument without

a showing of good cause. Id. Clark, like Kutscherousky, did not address the applicability of §

20.1304(a) and certainly did not indicate that that provision would apply when the AOJ returns an

appeal to the Board following a Board remand, a situation not even raised by the facts of that case.

Consequently, neither Kutscherousky nor Clark supports Mr. Williams's position.

In sum, the plain language of pre-amendment § 20.1304(a) and its companion regulations

establishes that § 20.1304(a) does not apply when the AOJ returns an appeal to the Board after a

8

Board remand. Instead, that subparagraph applies only after "mailing of notice to [the appellant

and his or her representative] that an appeal has been certified to the Board for appellate review

and that the appellate record has been transferred to the Board"—i.e., immediately after

certification and initial transfer of the appellate record to the Board.

Mr. Williams's appeal was certified and the appellate record was initially transferred to the

Board in January 2013. R. at 89.3 Section 20.1304(a) applied at that time. A different set of

regulations—§§ 19.31(c), 19.38, and 20.302(c)—governed his appeal when the RO returned it to

the Board three and a half years later after completing the tasks specified in the October 2014

Board remand. In accordance with those regulations, Mr. Williams was entitled to, and was

provided, 30 days after the RO issued the December 2015 SSOC to submit additional evidence or

argument, R. at 49, which he duly waived, R. at 23 (veteran's January 2016 response to the SSOC

stating that he had no further evidence to submit); see also R. at 21 (June 2016 Form 646 from Mr.

Williams's VSO representative averring that he had no further arguments). No regulation required

VA to provide the veteran with additional time to submit further evidence or argument after the

RO returned the appeal to the Board in June 2016, R. at 17-20, or when the Board notified him

that the appeal had resumed its place on the docket in July 2016, R. at 14. The fact that transfer

of the appellate record was accomplished by filling out another VA Form 8 had no legal

consequence. See 38 C.F.R. § 19.35.

In short, § 20.1304(a) did not apply to Mr. Williams's appeal when it was returned to the

Board from the RO in the summer of 2016. Consequently, the Court will not address the veteran's

constitutional and non-constitutional challenges to the validity of that inapplicable regulation. See

Lyng v. Nw. Indian Cemetery Protective Ass'n, 485 U.S. 439, 445 (1988) ("A fundamental and

longstanding principle of judicial restraint requires that courts avoid reaching constitutional

questions in advance of the necessity of deciding them."); Bucklinger v. Brown, 5 Vet.App. 435,

441 (1993) (same); see also Suguitan v. McDonald, 27 Vet.App. 114, 118 n.4 (2014) (declining to

address non-constitutional arguments premised on a statute that was not applicable to the

appellant's claim). And because Mr. Williams has not presented any argument that does not rely

3

Although the notice letter referred to in § 20.1304(a) is not included in the record, it is referenced in the

Board's January 18, 2013, letter to Mr. Williams, R. at 87 ("The letter that your local VA [RO] sent you when it

forwarded your VA claims file to the Board includes important information about sending the Board new evidence,

changing your representative, and requesting an optional Board hearing. Please review that information carefully

before taking any of those actions.").

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on § 20.1304(a), he has failed to carry his burden of demonstrating error. See Hilkert v. West,

12 Vet.App. 145, 151 (1999) (en banc) (holding that the appellant has the burden of demonstrating

error), aff'd per curiam, 232 F.3d 908 (Fed. Cir. 2000) (table).

B. The Board's Citation to § 20.1304(a) in its July 2016 Notice Letter

Was, At Most, Harmless Error.

In an effort to avoid the conclusion that pre-amendment § 20.1304(a) did not apply to his

appeal when it was returned to the Board by the AOJ in June 2016, Mr. Williams asserted, for the

first time at oral argument, that the Board's citation to § 20.1304(a) in its July 2016 notice letter

made that provision applicable to his appeal, notwithstanding the language of the regulation itself.

Oral Argument at 10:29-11:06. Generally, the Court will not entertain arguments raised for the

first time at oral argument because allowing counsel to present new arguments at that point in the

litigation "is not helpful to the Court and is fundamentally unfair to opposing counsel." Overton

v. Wilkie, 30 Vet.App. 257, 265 (2018) (citing Sellers v. Wilkie, 30 Vet.App. 157, 166 (2018)).

That is the case here and the Court, therefore, will not address the merits of that argument.

Nevertheless, to the extent that such an argument could be inferred from the portions of

Mr. Williams's briefs alleging that the Board's July 2016 letter provided him constitutionally

inadequate notice, see Appellant's Br. at 13-16; Reply Br. at 8-12, it is sufficient to note that such

an inferred argument would fail because the veteran has not carried his burden of demonstrating

how he was prejudiced by the Board's erroneous citation to § 20.1304(a) in that letter. 4 See

Spellers v. Wilkie, 30 Vet.App. 211, 220 (2018) (declining to address the substance of an argument

raised for the first time at oral argument, but nevertheless pointing out a key deficiency in that

argument); see also 38 U.S.C. § 7261(b)(2) (requiring the Court to "take due account of the rule

of prejudicial error"); Shinseki v. Sanders, 556 U.S. 396, 409 (2009) (explaining that "the burden

of showing that an error is harmful normally falls upon the party attacking the agency's

determination"); Gambill v. Shinseki, 576 F.3d 1307, 1311 (Fed. Cir. 2009) (holding that the denial

4

Mr. Williams also did not identify a legal theory that would support applying § 20.1304(a) to his appeal

based on the Board's erroneous citation to that provision. See, e.g., Eicher v. Shulkin, 29 Vet.App. 57, 63-64 (2017)

(explaining that substantive rights generally cannot be conferred on claimants based on misstatements of VA). To

the extent that any such argument would be based on principles of equitable estoppel, he has failed to demonstrate

that equitable estoppel is available against the Government and, even it is, that equitable estoppel is warranted in this

case. See Gumpenberger v. Wilkie, __ Vet.App. __, __, 2019 WL 470593, at *6 (Feb. 7, 2019) (rejecting an argument

"premised on equitable estoppel or another related, albeit unidentified, legal theory" because the appellant failed to

establish that equitable estoppel could apply against the Government and that it was appropriate in that case) (citing

OPM v. Richmond, 496 U.S. 414, 430 (1990); Lyng v. Payne, 476 U.S. 926, 935 (1986)).

10

of due process "in a particular case is subject to harmless error analysis"). Specifically, he has not

demonstrated that the Board's erroneous citation to § 20.1304(a) was either inherently prejudicial

or that it was prejudicial in his case. See Simmons v. Wilkie, 30 Vet.App. 267, 279-83 (2018).

With respect to inherent prejudice, Mr. Williams has not identified an error that either

abrogated the essential fairness of the adjudication or deprived him of a meaningful opportunity

to participate in his claim. See id. at 281-82. As the Secretary points out, Secretary's Br. at 12-13,

the veteran had multiple opportunities to submit additional evidence and argument to VA,

including during the 30-day period following the December 2015 SSOC, the 7-month period

between issuance of the SSOC and the Board's July 2016 notice letter, and the 42-day period

between mailing of that letter and issuance of the Board decision. Both Mr. Williams and his VSO

representative affirmatively indicated that they had no further evidence or argument to submit

during those first two periods, R. at 21, 23, and the Board's July 2016 notice letter adequately

informed the veteran that his case would be "handled expeditiously," that the Board would "make

every effort to decide [the] appeal as quickly as possible," and that he could submit additional

evidence and argument "until the Board issues a decision in [his] appeal," R. at 14. Under these

circumstances, the Court cannot conclude that the Board's erroneous citation to § 20.1304(a)

resulted in inherent prejudice. See Vazquez-Flores v. Shinseki, 24 Vet.App. 94, 106-07 (2010)

(holding that, although failing to provide notice or providing defective notice of the evidence

necessary to substantiate a claim would have a naturally prejudicial effect, other notice errors

generally would not have such an effect).

In addition, Mr. Williams has not carried his burden of demonstrating that the Board's error

prejudiced his appeal. Although he argues that he "satisfied his burden of prejudice when he

alleged that if he were able to obtain additional evidence or argument during [the] 90-day period

[following mailing of the Board's July 2016 notice letter], he would have submitted evidence or

argument in support of his claim before the Board denied his claim," Reply Br. at 13, such a bare

assertion that an appellant would have submitted evidence or argument to the Board during a given

period but for a notice error, without more, is not sufficient to establish prejudice. See Sanders,

556 U.S. at 413 (agreeing with this Court's conclusion that a veteran failed to establish that a notice

error was prejudicial because he had not articulated "what specific additional evidence proper

notice would have led him to obtain or seek" or "how the notice error to which he points could

have made any difference"); Clark, 30 Vet.App. at 99 (finding prejudice based on an "assertion

11

that the appellant may have submitted evidence to the Board" because the appellant had identified

"new medical evidence which may [have] substantiate[d] his claim" that he "would have submitted

. . . had the Board not prematurely issued the decision on appeal") (internal quotations omitted).

Because Mr. Williams has not identified any specific evidence or argument that he would have

proffered to the Board or even suggested that any outstanding favorable evidence exists, 5 we

conclude that he has failed to carry his burden of demonstrating prejudice in this case. 6 See

Sanders, 556 U.S. at 409; Simmons, 30 Vet.App. at 280.

III. CONCLUSION

Upon consideration of the foregoing, the August 26, 2016, Board decision is AFFIRMED.

5

The Court notes that one of the issues before the Board is a challenge to a January 1970 rating decision

based on CUE, the resolution of which must be based on the evidence of record when the RO made its decision nearly

50 years ago. See Russell v. Principi, 3 Vet.App. 310, 314 (1992) (en banc) ("A determination that there was [CUE]

must be based on the record and the law that existed at the time of the prior AOJ or [Board] decision."). It is therefore

unlikely that Mr. Williams, had he been given more time to submit evidence before the Board, would have been able

to submit new favorable evidence that remained within the constraints of CUE.

6

To be clear, the Court does not hold that the Board's erroneous citation to § 20.1304(a) in a notice letter is

necessarily not prejudicial or that the Board does not err when it issues a decision sooner than 90 days after sending a

notice letter to a claimant in a case where § 20.1304(a) actually applies. Rather, we hold only that Mr. Williams has

failed to carry his burden of demonstrating prejudicial error in this case. See Sanders, 556 U.S. at 409.

12