# Jacobsen v. West

> United States Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims · August 26, 1999 · 12 Vet. App. 546

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/8167604

## Case

- **Full name:** Melvin W. JACOBSEN v. Togo D. WEST, Jr., Secretary of Veterans Affairs
- **Court:** United States Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims
- **Decided:** August 26, 1999
- **Citations:** 12 Vet. App. 546; 1999 U.S. Vet. App. LEXIS 906; 1999 WL 649631
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Kramer
- **Judges:** Farley, Kramer, Nebeker
- **Cited by:** 8 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/8167604

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- holding that Secretary's position not substantially justified at administrative stage where Secretary had conceded at merits stage that Board failed to follow established law, even though Court had not so found at merits stage
- holding that Secretary’s position at administrative level was not substantially justified where Secretary conceded, during litigation phase, that error had occurred at administrative level

## Opinion text

KRAMER, Judge,
concurring:
Our caselaw has uniformly held that, in determining whether the Secretary’s administrative position was substantially justified, the Court will not readjudicate the appeal de novo, but rather, in making such a determination, the Court will focus on the language of the Court’s remand order and, if applicable, the language of a joint motion for remand. See Jackson v. West, 12 Vet.App. 422, 427 (1999); Stephens v. West, 12 Vet.App. 115, 118-19 (1999); Dillon v. Brown, 8 Vet.App. 165, 168 (1995). Today, the Court creates a narrow exception to this general rule that the Court will not look beyond what the Board was required to do under the terms of the remand ordered by the Court, but only where, as here, the Secretary has explicitly conceded and requested a remand for an error not referenced in a joint motion or in the Court’s order. Cf. Jackson, supra (in determining the reasonableness of the Secretary’s administrative position, the Court will not consider the appellant’s allegations of error that were not addressed in the Court’s remand order).

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/8167604. Public record. Not legal advice.