NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.

 

United States Court of Appeals 

for the Federal Circuit ______________________ 

CYNTHIA A. TORREZ,

Claimant-Appellant

v.

DENIS MCDONOUGH, SECRETARY OF 

VETERANS AFFAIRS,

Respondent-Appellee

______________________ 

2023-1945

______________________ 

Appeal from the United States Court of Appeals for 

Veterans Claims in No. 22-4907, Judge Scott Laurer.

______________________ 

Decided: April 18, 2024

______________________ 

CYNTHIA A. TORREZ, San Antonio, TX, pro se.

 MARIANA TERESA ACEVEDO, Commercial Litigation 

Branch, Civil Division, United States Department of Justice, Washington, DC, for respondent-appellee. Also represented by BRIAN M. BOYNTON, TARA K. HOGAN, PATRICIA M.

MCCARTHY; BRIAN D. GRIFFIN, Y. KEN LEE, ANDREW J.

STEINBERG, Office of General Counsel, United States Department of Veterans Affairs, Washington, DC.

______________________ 

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2 TORREZ v. MCDONOUGH

Before MOORE, Chief Judge, LOURIE, Circuit Judge, and 

ALBRIGHT, District Judge.

∗

PER CURIAM. 

Cynthia A. Torrez appeals an order from the Court of 

Appeals for Veterans Claims (Veterans Court) denying her

petition for a writ of mandamus. We affirm-in-part and

dismiss-in-part. 

BACKGROUND

Ricardo Torrez served on active duty in the United 

States Air Force from June 1979 to May 1995. Appx. 30.1 

In January 2011, he filed requests with the Department of 

Veterans Affairs (VA) seeking service connection for at 

least thirteen disabilities, requesting to reopen previously 

denied service connection claims for five disabilities, and 

requesting increased ratings for two disabilities. In July 

2011, Mr. Torrez passed away. Mrs. Torrez, his surviving 

spouse, subsequently sought service connection for Mr. 

Torrez’s cause of death. Appx. 43.

In April 2013, the VA regional office (RO) granted service connection for two claims and denied the remaining 

claims. Mrs. Torrez appealed to the Board of Veterans’ Appeals (Board). The Board remanded the claims to the RO

twice for further development, first in June 2015 and again 

in May 2018. 

In October 2020, the Board denied the claims. Mrs. 

Torrez appealed to the Veterans Court. In April 2022, the

∗ Honorable Alan D Albright, District Judge, United 

States District Court for the Western District of Texas, sitting by designation.

1 “Appx.” refers to the Appendix attached to Respondent’s Informal Brief.

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TORREZ v. MCDONOUGH 3

Veterans Court affirmed the Board’s denial of some claims 

and remanded the remaining claims for further development and adjudication. Mrs. Torrez appealed to this court, 

and we affirmed the Veterans Court’s decision. Appx. 3; 

see also Torrez v. McDonough, No. 2022-1909, 2022 WL 

16908625 (Fed. Cir. Nov. 14, 2022). 

In August 2022, Mrs. Torrez petitioned the Veterans 

Court alleging the Board unreasonably delayed adjudicating the claims remanded in the court’s April 2022 decision

and seeking extraordinary relief by writ of mandamus. 

Appx. 1, 3. The Veterans Court evaluated the merits of 

Mrs. Torrez’s mandamus petition and applied the legal 

framework from Telecommunications Research & Action 

Center v. FCC, 750 F.2d 70, 79–80 (D.C. Cir. 1984) (TRAC), 

which outlines six factors for the court to consider when 

analyzing mandamus petitions based on alleged unreasonable delay by the VA. Appx. 3–4; see also Martin v. 

O’Rourke, 891 F.3d 1338, 1344–45 (Fed. Cir. 2018). The 

court denied the mandamus petition because it found the 

VA’s alleged delay in developing and adjudicating Mrs. 

Torrez’s claims was not so unreasonable as to warrant a 

writ of mandamus. Appx. 5. Mrs. Torrez appeals.

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 [Veterans] Court on 

a rule of law or of any statute or regulation . . . or any interpretation thereof (other than a determination as to a factual matter) that was relied on by the [Veterans] Court in 

making the decision.” 38 U.S.C. § 7292(a). Unless the appeal presents a constitutional issue, 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.” 38 U.S.C. § 7292(d)(2). We have jurisdiction 

to review the Veterans Court’s rulings on mandamus petitions. See Lamb v. Principi, 284 F.3d 1378, 1381 (Fed. Cir.

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4 TORREZ v. MCDONOUGH

2002). We review a denial of mandamus for abuse of discretion. Id. at 1384.

When an allegedly unreasonable delay is the basis of a 

mandamus petition, the Veterans Court analyzes the petition’s merits under the framework articulated in TRAC. 

See Martin, 891 F.3d at 1344–45 (quoting TRAC, 750 F.2d 

at 80). TRAC sets forth six factors to consider:

(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.

Id.

I 

The Veterans Court did not commit legal error or abuse 

its discretion in denying the mandamus petition. The Veterans Court properly applied the TRAC factors to assess

whether Mrs. Torrez was entitled to a writ compelling the 

VA to more expeditiously process her claims seeking service connection for several disabilities. Appx. 4–5. It found 

the first, second, fourth, and sixth TRAC factors weighed 

against issuing a writ; although the third and fifth TRAC

factors favored a writ, those factors did not outweigh the 

others. Id.

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TORREZ v. MCDONOUGH 5

Specifically, the Veterans Court found that, although 

the nature and extent of Mrs. Torrez’s interest weighed in 

favor of issuing a writ (third and fifth TRAC factors), the 

VA’s delay was inherent in the adjudication and development of veterans’ benefits claims. Id. It explained that

much of the delay resulted from the VA’s compliance with 

its legal duty to help Mrs. Torrez obtain the necessary medical records to develop her claims (first TRAC factor); that 

Congress did not establish a timeline for agency adjudication claims (second TRAC factor); that a judicial mandate 

forcing the VA to work faster would shift the VA’s resources 

from other veterans ahead of Mrs. Torrez in the Board’s 

queue system, effectively allowing Mrs. Torrez to cut in line

(fourth TRAC factor); and that there was no reason to think 

the VA had acted wrongfully (sixth TRAC factor). Id. The 

Veterans Court therefore determined issuance of a writ 

was not justified because the VA had not unreasonably delayed. Id. at 5.

Mrs. Torrez does not show the Veterans Court abused 

its discretion in reaching its conclusion, especially considering the demanding standard for mandamus. Nor does 

she allege any legal error. We may not review the Veterans 

Court’s straightforward application of the TRAC factors to 

the particular facts of this case unless there is a constitutional claim, see 38 U.S.C. § 7292, and here, there is no constitutional claim. 

II

Mrs. Torrez requests relief in the form of her husband’s 

disability pension. See Appellant’s Informal Br. at 3. To 

the extent Mrs. Torrez’s appeal raises arguments concerning the merits of her underlying service connection claims

for various disabilities, it is outside the scope of our review. 

When a veteran or beneficiary petitions for a writ of mandamus, we “may not review the factual merits” of the underlying claim, “but we may determine whether the 

petitioner has satisfied the legal standard for issuing the 

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6 TORREZ v. MCDONOUGH

writ.” Beasley v. Shinseki, 709 F.3d 1154, 1158 (Fed. Cir. 

2013). In particular, “we do not interfere with the [Veterans Court]’s role as the final appellate arbiter of the facts 

underlying a veteran’s claim or the application of veterans’ 

benefits law to the particular facts of a veteran’s case.” Id.; 

see also 38 U.S.C. § 7292(d)(2).

To the extent Mrs. Torrez’s request for disability pension refers to her earlier claims that the Board denied and 

the Veterans Court affirmed, Appx. 25–26, we have already 

affirmed the Veterans Court’s decision. Appx. 3; see also 

Torrez, 2022 WL 16908625, at *4. To the extent Mrs. Torrez’s request for disability pension refers to her earlier 

claims that the Veterans Court remanded, Appx. 25, each 

of those claims is currently on remand to the Board for further adjudication and development. Appx. 3, 4. The Veterans Court has not yet rendered a decision on those 

claims, so we lack jurisdiction to address them. See

38 U.S.C. § 7292. Our jurisdiction here is limited to the 

propriety of the Veterans Court’s denial of the mandamus 

petition. Therefore, we dismiss Mrs. Torrez’s other claims 

and requests for relief. 

CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the Veterans 

Court’s denial of mandamus, and we dismiss the appeal as 

to other issues. 

AFFIRMED IN PART AND DISMISSED IN PART

COSTS

No costs.

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