Case: 20-1571 Document: 35 Page: 1 Filed: 02/09/2021
NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.
United States Court of Appeals
for the Federal Circuit
______________________
PHILLIP A. JONES,
Claimant-Appellant
v.
DAT TRAN, ACTING SECRETARY OF VETERANS
AFFAIRS,
Respondent-Appellee
______________________
2020-1571
______________________
Appeal from the United States Court of Appeals for
Veterans Claims in No. 19-5422, Chief Judge Margaret C.
Bartley.
______________________
Decided: February 9, 2021
______________________
PHILLIP A. JONES, Atlanta, GA, pro se.
ALBERT S. IAROSSI, Commercial Litigation Branch,
Civil Division, United States Department of Justice, Wash-
ington, DC, for respondent-appellee. Also represented by
JEFFREY B. CLARK, CLAUDIA BURKE, ROBERT EDWARD
KIRSCHMAN, JR.
______________________
Case: 20-1571 Document: 35 Page: 2 Filed: 02/09/2021
2 JONES v. TRAN
Before DYK, MAYER, and CHEN, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM.
Phillip A. Jones appeals a judgment of the United
States Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims (“Veterans
Court”) denying his petition for a writ of mandamus. See
Jones v. Wilkie, No. 19-5422,
2019 U.S. App. Vet. Claims
LEXIS 1877 (Oct. 25, 2019) (“Veterans Court Decision”).
For the reasons discussed below, we affirm.
BACKGROUND
Jones filed a petition for a writ of mandamus with the
Veterans Court on August 5, 2019. His petition asserted
that mandamus was necessary to compel the Department
of Veterans Affairs (“VA”) to expeditiously process his
claim for service connection for bilateral hand conditions in
accordance with the terms of a joint motion for remand
granted by the Veterans Court in July 2015. Jones also
requested that the Veterans Court hold the Secretary in
contempt for allegedly forcing him to enter his appeal into
the Rapid Appeals Modernization Program, Pub. L. No.
115-55,
131 Stat. 1105 (2017). Additionally, Jones asked
the court to issue “an emergency injunction to sustain [his]
claims submitted [] 10/15/2018.” Veterans Court Decision,
2019 U.S. App. Vet. Claims LEXIS 1877, at *1 (citation and
internal quotation marks omitted).
On October 25, 2019, the Veterans Court denied Jones’
petition, stating that he had “failed to demonstrate entitle-
ment to a writ of mandamus on any basis.” Id. at *4. Ac-
cording to the court, Jones had not demonstrated that a
writ compelling the VA to expeditiously process his claim
for service connection for bilateral hand conditions was
warranted given that both the VA Regional Office (“RO”)
and the Board of Veterans’ Appeals (“board”) had “actively
processed” his claim “without unreasonable delay.” Id. at
*5. Since Jones had appealed his claim to the board, more-
over, the court concluded that he had “failed to
Case: 20-1571 Document: 35 Page: 3 Filed: 02/09/2021
JONES v. TRAN 3
demonstrate that he lack[ed] adequate alternative means
to obtain a more favorable decision on” that claim. Id. at
*6.
The Veterans Court further concluded that Jones had
failed to show that the VA coerced him into entering his
claim for bilateral hand conditions into the Rapid Appeals
Modernization Program “or otherwise committed an of-
fence necessitating a contempt order.” Id. Finally, the
court determined that to the extent Jones was seeking “an
injunction to ‘sustain’ the grants of service connection for
degenerative arthritis of the lumbar spine and right lower
extremity radiculopathy, no judicial action [was] necessary
because the VA cannot, absent a finding of clear and un-
mistakable error in the October 2018 RO decision, reverse
those grants on appeal.” Id. at *7–8. Jones subsequently
appealed to this court.
DISCUSSION
This court’s authority to review decisions of the Veter-
ans Court is limited. We have jurisdiction to “decide all
relevant questions of law, including interpreting constitu-
tional and statutory provisions.”
38 U.S.C. § 7292(d)(1).
Except where a constitutional claim is raised, however, we
“may not review (A) a challenge to a factual determination,
or (B) a challenge to a law or regulation as applied to the
facts of a particular case.”
Id. § 7292(d)(2); see Wanless v.
Shinseki,
618 F.3d 1333, 1336 (Fed. Cir. 2010).
Under the All Writs Act, a petitioner may seek a writ
of mandamus from the Veterans Court. See
28 U.S.C.
§ 1651(a); Martin v. O’Rourke,
891 F.3d 1338, 1342–43
(Fed. Cir. 2018); Cox v. West,
149 F.3d 1360, 1363–64 (Fed.
Cir. 1998). Importantly, however, “[t]he remedy of manda-
mus is a drastic one, to be invoked only in extraordinary
situations.” Kerr v. U.S. Dist. Ct. for the N. Dist. of Cal.,
426 U.S. 394, 402 (1976). The writ should be granted only
where: (1) the petitioner has “no other adequate means to
attain” the desired relief; (2) the petitioner can establish
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4 JONES v. TRAN
that the right to the relief is “clear and indisputable”; and
(3) the issuing court, exercising its discretion, determines
that the remedy “is appropriate under the circumstances.”
Cheney v. U.S. Dist. Ct. for the Dist. of D.C.,
542 U.S. 367,
380–81 (2004) (citations and internal quotation marks
omitted). Furthermore, where, as here, the petitioner
seeks relief from “unreasonable delay” in a VA proceeding,
the Veterans Court must additionally evaluate the factors
set out in Telecommunications Research and Action Center
v. Federal Communications Commission (“TRAC”),
750
F.2d 70, 79 (D.C. Cir. 1984) (explaining that the overarch-
ing inquiry in analyzing a claim of unreasonable delay is
“whether the agency’s delay is so egregious as to warrant
mandamus” and identifying six factors relevant to address-
ing this question); see Martin, 891 F.3d at 1348 (holding
that the TRAC factors provide an appropriate framework
for analyzing mandamus petitions alleging unreasonable
delay in VA proceedings).
Although Jones is understandably frustrated by the de-
lays in processing his claim, we discern no legal error in the
Veterans Court’s decision to deny his petition for a writ of
mandamus. See Mote v. Wilkie,
976 F.3d 1337, 1340 (Fed.
Cir. 2020) (“The proper legal standard for the Veterans
Court to use in deciding mandamus petitions is an issue
within this court’s jurisdiction.”). The Veterans Court ap-
plied the TRAC factors in assessing whether Jones was en-
titled to a writ compelling the VA to more expeditiously
process his claim seeking service connection for bilateral
hand conditions. See Veterans Court Decision,
2019 U.S.
App. Vet. Claims LEXIS 1877, at *3–6. It determined, how-
ever, that issuance of the writ was not justified because
neither the board nor the RO had unreasonably delayed in
processing that claim. Id. at *5. In this regard, the Veter-
ans Court concluded that although the RO did not decide
Jones’ claim “within its stated goal of 125 days after [he]
opted into [the Rapid Appeals Modernization Program],”
the “RO’s July 2019 decision list[ed] over three pages of
Case: 20-1571 Document: 35 Page: 5 Filed: 02/09/2021
JONES v. TRAN 5
evidence received and development activities undertaken
following the [Veteran Court’s] remand that appear[ed] to
justify deviation from that timeline.” Id. As we have pre-
viously made clear, in determining whether a delay is so
egregious as to warrant the issuance of a writ of manda-
mus, a court may properly “consider whether the delays are
due in part to the VA’s statutory duty to assist a claimant
in developing his or her case.” Martin, 891 F.3d at 1346.
On appeal, Jones argues that the Veterans Court erred
in failing to review certain documentation related to his
claim that he was “coerced” into submitting his claim for
bilateral hand conditions into the Rapid Appeals Moderni-
zation Program. The fact that the Veterans Court did not
specifically discuss every document submitted by Jones,
however, does not mean that the court did not adequately
assess the issue of whether he was coerced into submitting
his claim into the Rapid Appeals Modernization Program.
See, e.g., Gonzales v. West,
218 F.3d 1378, 1381 (Fed. Cir.
2000). To the extent Jones asks this court to reweigh the
evidence regarding his claim that the VA “lure[d]” him into
participating in the program, moreover, we are, as dis-
cussed previously, without jurisdiction to “review the fac-
tual merits of [a] veteran’s claim” or to otherwise “interfere
with the [Veterans Court’s] role as the final appellate arbi-
ter of the facts underlying a veteran’s claim or the applica-
tion of veterans’ benefits law to the particular facts of a
veteran’s case.” Beasley v. Shinseki,
709 F.3d 1154, 1158
(Fed. Cir. 2013).
In his appeal brief, Jones asks this court to compel the
VA to award him service connection for his bilateral hand
conditions and to assign an October 2010 effective date for
that award. He also requests that we award him compen-
sation for peripheral neuropathy. A writ of mandamus,
however, may not be used as an alternative appellate path-
way. See, e.g., Bankers Life & Cas. Co. v. Holland,
346 U.S.
379, 383 (1953) (“The office of a writ of mandamus [may
not] be enlarged to actually control the decision of the trial
Case: 20-1571 Document: 35 Page: 6 Filed: 02/09/2021
6 JONES v. TRAN
court rather than used in its traditional function of confin-
ing a court to its prescribed jurisdiction.”); Lamb v. Prin-
cipi,
284 F.3d 1378, 1384 (Fed. Cir. 2002) (explaining that
a writ of mandamus cannot be used as a substitute for an
appeal). We have considered Jones’ remaining arguments
but do not find them persuasive.
CONCLUSION
Accordingly, the judgment of the United States Court
of Appeals for Veterans Claims is affirmed.
AFFIRMED
COSTS
No costs.
