Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca13-16-01583/USCOURTS-ca13-16-01583-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Geiry L. Mathis
Appellant
Robert A. McDonald
Appellee

Document Text:

NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.

United States Court of Appeals 

for the Federal Circuit ______________________ 

GEIRY L. MATHIS,

Claimant-Appellant

v.

ROBERT A. MCDONALD, SECRETARY OF 

VETERANS AFFAIRS,

Respondent-Appellee

______________________ 

2016-1583

______________________ 

Appeal from the United States Court of Appeals for 

Veterans Claims in No. 15-3298, Judge Robert N. Davis.

______________________ 

Decided: June 13, 2016

______________________ 

GEIRY L. MATHIS, Home, PA, pro se.

JESSICA COLE, Commercial Litigation Branch, Civil 

Division, United States Department of Justice, Washington, DC, for respondent-appellee. Also represented by 

BENJAMIN C. MIZER, ROBERT E. KIRSCHMAN, Jr., MARTIN 

F. HOCKEY, JR.; Y. KEN LEE, BRANDON A. JONAS, Office of 

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2 MATHIS v. MCDONALD

General Counsel, United States Department of Veterans 

Affairs, Washington, DC.

______________________ 

Before DYK, PLAGER, and REYNA, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM. 

Geiry L. Mathis appeals from a decision of the United 

States Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims (“Veterans 

Court”) denying his petition for extraordinary relief in the 

nature of mandamus. We affirm. 

BACKGROUND

Mr. Mathis served on active duty in the U.S. Army 

from June 1968 to September 1969. In 1979, Mr. Mathis 

asserted entitlement to a total disability based on individual unemployability (“TDIU”) after having received a 

30 percent disability rating for non-psychotic organic 

brain syndrome (“OBS”), brain trauma, and tinnitus. The

Department of Veterans Affairs (“VA”) denied his TDIU 

claim. Mr. Mathis appealed, and in 1989 the Board of 

Veterans’ Appeals (“Board”) also denied TDIU. Mr. 

Mathis did not appeal further, and the decision became 

final. 

In 2013, Mr. Mathis alleged clear and unmistakable 

error (“CUE”) with respect to the denial of his TDIU claim

in 1979. The Board in 2013 remanded the issue of whether the 1979 decision denying entitlement to TDIU should 

be reversed or revised on the basis of CUE. While that

Board decision was still pending on remand to the VA, 

Mr. Mathis appealed to the Veterans Court, which dismissed for lack of jurisdiction. We affirmed. Mathis v. 

McDonald, 625 F. App’x 539, 542 (Fed. Cir. 2015).

Between 2013 and 2015, the VA did not act on Mr. 

Mathis’s remanded TDIU claim. In July 2015, Mr. 

Mathis filed a motion with the Veterans Court which the 

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MATHIS v. MCDONALD 3

court construed as a petition for mandamus on the basis 

that the VA had failed to expeditiously process Mr. 

Mathis’s TDIU claim. The Secretary of Veterans Affairs

filed a response indicating that Mr. Mathis’s TDIU claim

had been merged with a separate claim remanded by the 

Veterans Court in 2015. As to that separate claim, the 

Veterans Court had concluded in 2015 that the Board in a 

separate decision erred by failing to consider whether Mr. 

Mathis was entitled to a disability rating for headaches 

separate from his tinnitus and OBS, and remanded for a 

consideration of whether the error manifestly changed the 

outcome of Mr. Mathis’s disability rating. The Secretary 

apologized for the delay in resolving the TDIU claim and 

explained that the merged claims were both formally 

docketed before the Board and would be decided promptly 

after the mandate issued on the Veterans’ Court’s 2015 

decision and Mr. Mathis’s 90-day period to submit evidence expired. 

In January 2016, the Veterans Court denied Mr. 

Mathis’s petition for mandamus. Geiry L. Mathis v. 

Robert A. McDonald, No. 15-3298 (Vet. App. Jan. 20, 

2016). The court explained that Mr. Mathis did not 

demonstrate a clear and indisputable right to the writ 

because his case had been placed on the Board’s docket 

and he had not demonstrated that the decision to merge 

the claims on remand had caused unreasonable delay 

amounting to a refusal to act. The court declined to 

address Mr. Mathis’s arguments on the merits of the CUE 

issue, explaining that a writ is not a substitute for the 

appeals process. Mr. Mathis now appeals to our court the 

2016 decision of the Veterans Court denying his petition. 

We have limited jurisdiction to review decisions of the 

Veterans Court. We have jurisdiction to review the 

Veterans Court’s denial of a writ of mandamus only in 

circumstances involving a constitutional claim or the 

interpretation of a regulation or statute. 38 U.S.C. 

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4 MATHIS v. MCDONALD

§ 7292(c); Lamb v. Principi, 284 F.3d 1378, 1381 (Fed. Cir. 

2002). Because Mr. Mathis alleges constitutional due 

process violations in connection with the denial of his 

petition, we have jurisdiction. See Lamb, 284 F.3d at 

1381. We review the Veterans Court’s denial of a petition 

for a writ of mandamus for abuse of discretion. Id. at 

1384; see also Hargrove v. Shinseki, 629 F.3d 1377, 1379 

(Fed. Cir. 2011). 

DISCUSSION

On appeal, Mr. Mathis challenges the delay associated 

with his CUE motion between 2013 and 2015 and argues 

that the VA impermissibly merged that motion with the 

disability rating issue remanded in 2015. To be entitled 

to a writ of mandamus, a petitioner must demonstrate 

“(1) that he has a ‘clear and indisputable right’ to the writ 

and (2) that he has no alternative way to obtain the relief 

sought.” Lamb, 284 F.3d at 1382 (quoting Kerr v. U.S. 

Dist. Court for N. Dist. of Cal., 426 U.S. 394, 403 (1976)). 

“The remedy of mandamus is a drastic one, to be invoked 

only in extraordinary situations.” Kerr, 426 U.S. at 402. 

At the time the Veterans Court considered Mr. 

Mathis’s petition for writ of mandamus, the Board had

already docketed but not resolved Mr. Mathis’s CUE 

motion regarding the TDIU issue. While there has been a

continuing delay in deciding the TDIU claim associated 

with the merger of the TDIU claim with the disability 

rating claim remanded in 2015, the Board is not required 

to adjudicate each claim in a separate decision, and it was 

not unreasonable for the Board to merge the two related 

claims here. There is no suggestion that the VA has 

delayed in resolving the disability rating issue, and the 

disability rating would affect the TDIU decision. We 

assume that the VA will act promptly to resolve Mr. 

Mathis’s claims. The Veterans Court did not abuse its 

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MATHIS v. MCDONALD 5

mus. We have considered Mr. Mathis’s other arguments 

and find them to be without merit.

AFFIRMED

COSTS

No costs.

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