In this per curiam order, the Court addressed only the appellant’s dispute over the contents of the record before the agency in a long-pending appeal concerning Chapter 31 vocational rehabilitation self-employment assistance. The Court applied the Federal Circuit’s constructive-possession framework from Euzebio II and reviewed the appellant’s identified documents in groups. It concluded that post-decision documents could not be added, documents already in the record did not need to be added, and several categories of materials—including statutes, regulations, VA webpages, and filings from other lawsuits—were not constructively before the Board because they were not relevant in the sense required by Euzebio II and related precedent.

The Court emphasized that constructive possession depends not only on VA’s actual or constructive knowledge of a document, but also on whether the evidence tends to prove or disprove a material fact and could reasonably be expected to be part of the record. It also stressed that the appellant must plead the relevance of each disputed item with particularity. Because the appellant did not satisfy those requirements for the disputed documents, the Court denied the motion to amend the RBA and denied a related clarification motion as moot. The order does not decide the merits of the underlying Chapter 31 appeal, which was returned to the assigned judge for resolution.

A document is constructively part of the VA record only if VA had actual or constructive knowledge of it, the document predated the Board decision, and it was relevant enough to bear on a material fact such that VA could reasonably be expected to include it in the record.

Record-completion motions must connect each disputed item to a material issue in the claim; generalized assertions that VA knew about the document or that it relates to VA generally are not enough.

This case is useful for resisting overbroad record supplementation requests and for framing constructive-possession objections under Euzebio II. It also reinforces that legal authorities, general VA program materials, and collateral litigation filings are not automatically part of the administrative record in a benefits appeal.

Failure to show that disputed materials are relevant and reasonably connected to the claim before the Board.

A veteran asks the Court to add dozens of VA webpages, prior lawsuits, and internal guidance documents to the record in an appeal about a benefit decision. Under Conyers, the request fails unless the veteran explains how each item bears on a material fact in the appeal and why it was reasonably expected to be in the record.

Use this case to oppose record-dispute motions that rely on broad relevance theories, and to argue that only documents tied to a material fact and reasonably expected to have been in the record should be considered.

Euzebio v. McDonough, Lang v. Wilkie, Bell v. Derwinski, Golz v. Shinseki, Varad v. McDonough, Coker v. Nicholson