Martin v. McDonough

Case: 20-1786 Document: 47 Page: 1 Filed: 05/05/2021

NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.

United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ______________________

VICTORIA C. MARTIN, Claimant-Appellant

v.

DENIS MCDONOUGH, SECRETARY OF VETERANS AFFAIRS, Respondent-Appellee ______________________

2020-1786 ______________________

Appeal from the United States Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims in No. 19-2375, Judge Amanda L. Mere- dith. ______________________

Decided: March 5, 2021 ______________________

KATHERINE A. HELM, Dechert LLP, New York, NY, for claimant-appellant. Also represented by JUDAH BELLIN, DANIEL ROBERTS, Philadelphia, PA.

JOSHUA E. KURLAND, Commercial Litigation Branch, Civil Division, United States Department of Justice, Wash- ington, DC, for respondent-appellee. Also represented by BRIAN M. BOYNTON, CLAUDIA BURKE, MATTHEW JUDE CARHART, MARTIN F. HOCKEY, JR.; Y. KEN LEE, BRYAN

Case: 20-1786 Document: 47 Page: 2 Filed: 05/05/2021 2 MARTIN v. MCDONOUGH

THOMPSON, Office of General Counsel, United States De- partment of Veterans Affairs, Washington, DC. ______________________

Before TARANTO, BRYSON, and CHEN, Circuit Judges. CHEN, Circuit Judge. Victoria C. Martin appeals from a decision of the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims (Veterans Court) denying her claim to status as a surviving spouse under 38 U.S.C. § 101(3) to Robert Martin, Sr., a deceased veteran. While Ms. Martin does not dispute that she was divorced from Mr. Martin at the time of his death, she argues that, be- cause her divorce was precipitated by physical abuse at the hands of Mr. Martin, she is exempt from the statute’s re- quirement that the surviving spouse be married to the vet- eran at the time of his death to obtain benefits. See 38 U.S.C. § 101(3); 38 C.F.R. § 3.50(b)(1). We have twice confronted and declined to adopt the po- sition Ms. Martin advocates here. See Haynes v. McDon- ald, 785 F.3d 614 (Fed. Cir. 2015); Brown v. Wilkie, 814 F. App’x 565 (Fed. Cir. 2020). In Haynes, we “discern[ed] no error in the Veterans Court’s interpretation of § 3.50(b)(1) as providing no exception to the requirement that the sur- viving spouse and veteran be married at the time of the veteran’s death,” 785 F.3d at 616, despite Ms. Haynes’s ar- gument that the basis for her divorce from Mr. Haynes was his physical abuse, id. at 615. We reached the same con- clusion recently in Brown, where we reaffirmed that “[m]arriage at the time of death is a necessary predicate for a spousal death benefit claim, regardless of the reason for the divorce.” 814 F. App’x at 567. Ms. Martin argues that Haynes does not control her ap- peal because that decision addressed only the VA’s regula- tion, § 3.50(b)(1), and not whether the statute itself, § 101(3), forecloses a domestic abuse exception to the con- temporaneous-marriage requirement. But Haynes cites

Case: 20-1786 Document: 47 Page: 3 Filed: 05/05/2021 MARTIN v. MCDONOUGH 3

directly to the statutory text of § 101(3), 785 F.3d at 615, and holds that “[n]o exception to this clear statutory man- date and regulation is indicated,” id. at 616 (emphasis added). And, as we later recognized in Brown, our decision in Haynes was reached “based on our interpretation of § 101(3) and its implementing regulations.” 814 F. App’x at 567; see also Haynes, 785 F.3d at 616 (observing that the definition of “surviving spouse” in § 3.50(b)(1) “track[s] the statute”). We therefore see no reason to distinguish Haynes, which simply followed the “clear statutory man- date” that a “surviving spouse” is a person “who was the spouse of a veteran at the time of the veteran’s death.” § 101(3). Given the clear language of the statute and our binding precedent, we decline to disturb the Veterans Court’s deci- sion to deny Ms. Martin surviving-spouse status under 38 U.S.C. § 101(3). We have considered Ms. Martin’s remain- ing arguments and are unpersuaded; we accordingly af- firm. AFFIRMED COSTS No costs.