Case: 22-2092 Document: 29 Page: 1 Filed: 04/14/2023
NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.
United States Court of Appeals
for the Federal Circuit
______________________
RODNEY KEITH WRIGHT,
Claimant-Appellant
v.
DENIS MCDONOUGH, SECRETARY OF
VETERANS AFFAIRS,
Respondent-Appellee
______________________
2022-2092
______________________
Appeal from the United States Court of Appeals for
Veterans Claims in No. 22-1327, Judge Coral Wong Pi-
etsch.
______________________
Decided: April 14, 2023
______________________
RODNEY WRIGHT, Brooklyn, NY, pro se.
YARIV S. PIERCE, Commercial Litigation Branch, Civil
Division, United States Department of Justice, Washing-
ton, DC, for respondent-appellee. Also represented by
BRIAN M. BOYNTON, ERIC P. BRUSKIN, PATRICIA M.
MCCARTHY; CHRISTOPHER O. ADELOYE, BRIAN D. GRIFFIN,
Office of General Counsel, United States Department of
Veterans Affairs, Washington, DC.
Case: 22-2092 Document: 29 Page: 2 Filed: 04/14/2023
2 WRIGHT v. MCDONOUGH
______________________
Before DYK, SCHALL, and CHEN, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM.
Mr. Rodney Keith Wright appeals an order of the
United States Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims (Vet-
erans Court) denying in part and dismissing in part
Mr. Wright’s petition for extraordinary relief. Wright v.
McDonough, No. 22-1327,
2022 WL 1184662, at *6 (Vet.
App. Apr. 21, 2022) (Order). We affirm the Veterans
Court’s order denying the petition and dismiss the parts of
Mr. Wright’s appeal over which we do not have jurisdiction.
BACKGROUND
Mr. Wright served in the United States Army Reserve
from 1990 to 1997 and the United States Air Force Reserve
from 1997 to 2006. Appx. 108. 1 On March 10, 2020,
Mr. Wright applied for special monthly compensation
(SMC) based on aid and attendance, claiming that his “cer-
vical radiculopathy, carpal tunnel and right shoulder pain
prevent[ed him] from preparing [his] own meals and re-
quire[d] assistance with bathing and tending to other hy-
giene needs.” Appx. 95. Mr. Wright underwent a
Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) examination in Octo-
ber 2020, and in November 2020, the Regional Office de-
nied his claim. Appx. 92, 95.
Mr. Wright filed a supplemental claim for SMC in No-
vember 2020, which was denied in February 2021. Appx.
86–87. In March 2021, Mr. Wright filed a Notice of Disa-
greement (NOD) appealing this decision to the Board of
Veterans’ Appeals (Board). Order,
2022 WL 1184662, at
*1. A week later, the Board sent Mr. Wright a letter
1 “Appx.” citations refer to the appendix filed concur-
rently with Respondent’s brief.
Case: 22-2092 Document: 29 Page: 3 Filed: 04/14/2023
WRIGHT v. MCDONOUGH 3
“confirming receipt of [Mr. Wright’s] NOD” and explaining
“that [Mr. Wright’s] appeal had been placed on the direct
review docket.”
Id. Mr. Wright subsequently filed three
motions to advance his appeal, all of which were denied.
Id. at *5.
In addition to these motions, Mr. Wright filed with the
Veterans Court a petition for extraordinary relief in the
form of a writ of mandamus. Mr. Wright’s petition asked
the court to “compel [the Board] to issue a decision on his
appeal seeking entitlement to [SMC] based on the need for
aid and attendance.” Id. at *1. The Veterans Court denied
Mr. Wright’s petition after a thorough analysis of the
TRAC factors, id. at *2–3, and dismissed Mr. Wright’s
other requests as moot, id. at *3–6. Mr. Wright appeals the
court’s denial of his petition. 2
DISCUSSION
Our jurisdiction to review decisions of the Veterans
Court is limited by statute. See
38 U.S.C. § 7292. We may
review “the validity of a decision of the Court on a rule of
law or of any statute or regulation . . . or any interpretation
thereof . . . that was relied on by the Court in making the
decision.”
38 U.S.C. § 7292(a). We have “jurisdiction to re-
view the [Veterans Court’s] decision whether to grant a
mandamus petition that raises a non-frivolous legal ques-
tion.” Beasley v. Shinseki,
709 F.3d 1154, 1158 (Fed. Cir.
2013). Although we “may not review the factual merits of
the veteran’s claim,” “we may determine whether the peti-
tioner has satisfied the legal standard for issuing the writ.”
Id. We review the Veterans Court’s denial of a petition for
a writ of mandamus for abuse of discretion. See Lamb v.
Principi,
284 F.3d 1378, 1384 (Fed. Cir. 2002).
2 It appears Mr. Wright is only appealing the denial
of his petition, not the dismissal by the Veterans Court of
his other requests.
Case: 22-2092 Document: 29 Page: 4 Filed: 04/14/2023
4 WRIGHT v. MCDONOUGH
When analyzing petitions based on alleged unreasona-
ble delay by VA, the Veterans Court’s analysis is guided by
the six TRAC factors:
(1) the time agencies take to make decisions must
be governed by a “rule of reason”;
(2) where Congress has provided a timetable or
other indication of the speed with which it expects
the agency to proceed in the enabling statute, that
statutory scheme may supply content for this rule
of reason;
(3) delays that might be reasonable in the sphere of
economic regulation are less tolerable when human
health and welfare are at stake;
(4) the court should consider the effect of expediting
delayed action on agency activities of a higher or
competing priority;
(5) the court should also take into account the na-
ture and extent of the interests prejudiced by delay;
and
(6) the court need not find “any impropriety lurking
behind agency lassitude” in order to hold that
agency action is unreasonably delayed.
Martin v. O’Rourke,
891 F.3d 1338, 1344–45, 1348 (Fed.
Cir. 2018) (citing Telecomms. Rsch. & Action Ctr. v. FCC,
750 F.2d 70, 79–80 (D.C. Cir. 1984) (TRAC)).
Here, the Veterans Court concluded that while the
third and fifth TRAC factors weigh in favor of granting the
petition, the remaining factors weighed against it. Order,
2022 WL 1184662, at *2–3. On the first two factors, the
Veterans Court “under[stood] the petitioner’s frustration
with the Board taking longer than average to issue a deci-
sion on his appeal, but the Court [did] not find that the ‘de-
lay is so egregious as to warrant mandamus.’” Id. at *2
(quoting Martin,
891 F.3d at 1344). As to the fourth factor,
Case: 22-2092 Document: 29 Page: 5 Filed: 04/14/2023
WRIGHT v. MCDONOUGH 5
the Veterans Court “not[ed] that the veterans’ benefits sys-
tem is burdened with fixed resources, and VA is in a better
position than the Court to evaluate how to use those lim-
ited resources.” Id. at *3. It found “[g]ranting a writ in this
case would merely shift the Board’s resources away from
processing other veterans’ appeals that are ahead of the pe-
titioner’s in the Board’s direct docket work queue.” Id. For
these reasons, the Veterans Court concluded “the peti-
tioner fail[ed] to demonstrate that he is entitled to the is-
suance of a writ.” Id.
Mr. Wright’s argument on appeal focuses on the first
two TRAC factors. He argues the Veterans Court erred by
looking to the date of his NOD—March 2021—to assess the
degree of the VA’s delay in adjudicating his SMC claim,
when the court should have looked to the date of his initial
compensation claim—October 2011. See Order,
2022 WL
1184662 at *1. In Mr. Wright’s view, because an SMC re-
quest is part of every VA claim, and since his initial disa-
bility compensation claim was filed in October 2011, this
date is the proper date from which to determine whether
his appeal regarding SMC has been timely decided. Appel-
lant’s Supp. Br. 7. 3
Although the Veterans Court does appear to consider
an effective date for SMC to be “when the evidence first
supported an award of SMC,” Bradley v. Peake,
22 Vet.
App. 280, 294 (2008), “the overarching inquiry in analyzing
a claim of unreasonable delay is whether the agency’s delay
is so egregious as to warrant mandamus,” Martin,
891 F.3d
at 1344 (internal quotations and citations omitted). Here,
Mr. Wright’s mandamus petition seeks to compel the Board
3 Mr. Wright filed a document concurrently with his
informal brief entitled “Petition for Writ of Mandamus.”
We consider this document to be a supplemental brief and
cite it as “Appellant’s Supp. Br.,” referencing the page num-
bers included at the bottom of the document.
Case: 22-2092 Document: 29 Page: 6 Filed: 04/14/2023
6 WRIGHT v. MCDONOUGH
to issue a decision on his March 2021 appeal, a request that
necessarily centers on the nature of any delay by the Board.
Mr. Wright provides no authority for his argument, and we
decline to adopt a broad rule stating the timeliness for
Board action on pending appeals is assessed from a claim’s
effective date. Thus, the Veterans Court did not abuse its
discretion with respect to the first two TRAC factors.
Mr. Wright’s arguments on the remaining factors are un-
persuasive.
Mr. Wright also raises various arguments character-
ized as constitutional. However, an “appellant’s ‘character-
ization of [a] question as constitutional in nature does not
confer upon us jurisdiction that we otherwise lack.’” Flores
v. Nicholson,
476 F.3d 1379, 1382 (Fed. Cir. 2007) (quoting
Helfer v. West,
174 F.3d 1332, 1335 (Fed. Cir. 1999)).
Mr. Wright’s allegedly constitutional arguments appear to
simply reargue the merits of his case, issues over which we
do not have jurisdiction. See
id.
CONCLUSION
We have considered Mr. Wright’s remaining argu-
ments and find them unpersuasive. We affirm the Veter-
ans Court’s order as to the writ of mandamus and dismiss
those issues over which we lack jurisdiction.
AFFIRMED-IN-PART AND DISMISSED-IN-PART
COSTS
No costs.
