This morning, the Federal Circuit released one nonprecedential opinion and one errata. The opinion comes in a veterans case appealed from the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims. Here is the introduction to the opinion, along with a link to the errata.
Proceviat v. Collins (Nonprecedential)
Richard Arnold Proceviat, who served honorably in the U.S. Army between 1970 and 1972, sought benefits from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) based on rheumatoid arthritis in 1987, and VA’s relevant regional office (RO) awarded him a non-service-connected pension effective August 1989. In 1996, Mr. Proceviat submitted new evidence that he needed regular aid and attendance (A&A), and VA awarded him the higher amount of a special monthly pension (SMP) with A&A effective June 1996. Since then, Mr. Proceviat has been unsuccessfully seeking an earlier effective date (back to 1987 or 1989) of the SMP-with-A&A benefit. The present appeal arises from a rejection of his contention by VA’s Board of Veterans’ Appeals (Board) in 2024, a rejection that, the following year, the United States Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims (Veterans Court) affirmed in light of previous adjudications. Proceviat v. Collins, No. 25-717, 2025 WL 3443439 (Vet. App. Dec. 1, 2025) (Decision).
Mr. Proceviat’s challenge centers on two arguments— that the Board did not sympathetically read medical records from July 1987 and July 1989 that, so read, support an earlier effective date for the SMP-with-A&A benefit; and that the RO failed to notify him of the denial of SMP claims in November 1987 and March 1989, violating his due-process rights. Proceviat Informal Br. at 4–5, 6–10. We conclude that Mr. Proceviat has not shown reversible error in the Veterans Court’s decision. We therefore affirm that decision.