NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.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 Pietsch.

______________________ 

Decided: April 14, 2023

______________________ 

RODNEY WRIGHT, Brooklyn, NY, pro se.

 YARIV S. PIERCE, Commercial Litigation Branch, Civil 

Division, United States Department of Justice, Washington, 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: 1 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 (Veterans 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 “cervical radiculopathy, carpal tunnel and right shoulder pain 

prevent[ed him] from preparing [his] own meals and require[d] assistance with bathing and tending to other hygiene needs.” Appx. 95. Mr. Wright underwent a 

Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) examination in October 2020, and in November 2020, the Regional Office denied his claim. Appx. 92, 95. 

Mr. Wright filed a supplemental claim for SMC in November 2020, which was denied in February 2021. Appx. 

86–87. In March 2021, Mr. Wright filed a Notice of Disagreement (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 concurrently with Respondent’s brief.

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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 review the [Veterans Court’s] decision whether to grant a 

mandamus petition that raises a non-frivolous legal question.” 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 petitioner 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.

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4 WRIGHT v. MCDONOUGH

When analyzing petitions based on alleged unreasonable 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 nature 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 decision on his appeal, but the Court [did] not find that the ‘delay 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: 4 Filed: 04/14/2023
WRIGHT v. MCDONOUGH 5

the Veterans Court “not[ed] that the veterans’ benefits system is burdened with fixed resources, and VA is in a better 

position than the Court to evaluate how to use those limited 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 petitioner’s in the Board’s direct docket work queue.” Id. For 

these reasons, the Veterans Court concluded “the petitioner fail[ed] to demonstrate that he is entitled to the issuance 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 request is part of every VA claim, and since his initial disability 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. Appellant’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 numbers included at the bottom of the document.

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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 unpersuasive.

Mr. Wright also raises various arguments characterized as constitutional. However, an “appellant’s ‘characterization 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 arguments and find them unpersuasive. We affirm the Veterans 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.

Case: 22-2092 Document: 29 Page: 6 Filed: 04/14/2023