Full Opinion

Case: 25-1535 Document: 42 Page: 1 Filed: 11/06/2026 NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential. United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ______________________ ERIC ERIKSMOEN, Claimant-Appellant v. DOUGLAS A. COLLINS, SECRETARY OF VETERANS AFFAIRS, Respondent-Appellee ______________________ 2025-1535 ______________________ Appeal from the United States Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims in No. 24-1947, Judge Amanda L. Mere- dith. ______________________ Decided: November 6, 2026 ______________________ KENNETH DOJAQUEZ, Carpenter Chartered, Topeka, KS, argued for claimant-appellant. SOSUN BAE, Commercial Litigation Branch, Civil Divi- sion, United States Department of Justice, Washington, DC, argued for respondent-appellee. Also represented by CHRISTOPHER O. ADELOYE, ERIC P. BRUSKIN, PATRICIA M. MCCARTHY, BRETT SHUMATE; DEREK SCADDEN, Office of Case: 25-1535 Document: 42 Page: 2 Filed: 11/06/2026 2 ERIKSMOEN v. COLLINS General Counsel, United States Department of Veterans Affairs, Washington, DC. ______________________ Before MOORE, Chief Judge, STOLL and CUNNINGHAM, Circuit Judges. MOORE, Chief Judge. Eric Eriksmoen appeals a decision of the Court of Ap- peals for Veterans Claims affirming a Board of Veterans’ Appeals decision, which denied Mr. Eriksmoen service con- nection for his lower spine disability. Mr. Eriksmoen only “asks this Court to review the Veterans Court’s decision in- sofar as it misapplied the law with respect to harmless er- ror.” Appellant’s Br. 2; see also Reply Br. 2 (“We did not raise a constitutional issue[.]”). This we cannot do. 38 U.S.C. § 7292(d)(2) (the Federal Circuit “may not re- view . . . a challenge to a law or regulation as applied to the facts of a particular case”). Aware of our jurisdictional limitation, Mr. Eriksmoen attempts to recast his appeal under our “case jurisdiction,” whereby a party’s contention that the Veterans Court ap- plied the wrong legal rule “is a prima facie legal claim and provides grounds for this Court to take jurisdiction.” Reply Br. 2–3 (quoting Willsey v. Peake, 535 F.3d 1368, 1371–72 (Fed. Cir. 2008)). Mr. Eriksmoen does not make a prima facie legal claim here because he asks us to invoke our case jurisdiction “to review how the Veterans Court applied the rule of law in Mr. Eriksmoen’s appeal.” Reply Br. 3 (em- phasis added). Indeed, Mr. Eriksmoen argues that “by ig- noring all the procedural effect that the error had, the Veterans Court essentially . . . applied the wrong rule of law by ignoring an entire swath of what the Court has said can constitute error.” Oral Arg. at 4:46–5:07 (citing Shinseki v. Sanders, 556 U.S. 396, 407, 11–12 (2009)). Un- der Mr. Eriksmoen’s logic, however, any incorrect applica- tion of a legal rule, by ignoring the effects of its correct Case: 25-1535 Document: 42 Page: 3 Filed: 11/06/2026 ERIKSMOEN v. COLLINS 3 operation, is “essentially [an] appli[cation] [of] the wrong rule of law.” Id. We lack jurisdiction to consider this argu- ment, which in substance is that the Veterans Court incor- rectly applied the harmless error rule. Accordingly, we dismiss. DISMISSED COSTS Costs to the Secretary.