NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential. 

United States Court of Appeals 

for the Federal Circuit 

__________________________ 

LEE P. WALKER, 

Claimant-Appellant, 

v. 

ERIC K. SHINSEKI, SECRETARY OF VETERANS 

AFFAIRS, 

Respondent-Appellee. 

__________________________ 

2011-7130 

__________________________ 

Appeal from the United States Court of Appeals for 

Veterans Claims in case no. 11-0610, Judge Lawrence B. 

Hagel. 

__________________________ 

Decided: October 13, 2011 

__________________________ 

LEE P. WALKER, of Capitol Heights, Maryland, pro se. 

SHELLEY D. WEGER, Attorney, Commercial Litigation 

Branch, Civil Division, United States Department of 

Justice, of Washington, DC, for respondent-appellee. 

With her on the brief were TONY WEST, Assistant Attorney General, JEANNE E. DAVIDSON, Director, and TODD M.

HUGHES, Deputy Director. Of counsel on the brief was 
WALKER v. DVA 2

DAVID J. BARRANS, Deputy Assistant General Counsel, 

United States Department of Veterans Affairs, of Washington, DC. 

__________________________ 

Before NEWMAN, MAYER, and O’MALLEY, Circuit Judges. 

PER CURIAM. 

Lee P. Walker appeals an order of the United States 

Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims (“Veterans Court”) 

denying his petition for a writ of mandamus. See Walker 

v. Shinseki, No. 11-0610, 2011 U.S. App. Vet. Claims 

LEXIS 534 (Vet. App. Mar. 16, 2011) (“Veterans Court 

Decision”). We affirm. 

I. 

Walker served on active duty in the United States 

Army from September 1960 to September 1962. In 1993, 

he submitted a claim seeking service-connected benefits 

for hearing loss, but that claim was denied. In 2004, the 

Board of Veterans’ Appeals (“board”) denied Walker’s 

request to reopen his claim, but in 2006, the Veterans 

Court, acting pursuant to a joint motion of the parties, 

remanded Walker’s claim to the board for readjudication. 

On remand, the board again denied Walker’s claim, 

concluding that his left ear hearing loss was not medically 

related to his military service. 

Walker then appealed to the Veterans Court, arguing 

that the Department of Veterans Affairs (“VA”) had 

violated its duty, under 38 U.S.C. § 5103A, to assist him 

when it failed to obtain his medical treatment records. 

Specifically, Walker alleged that the VA had “never 

responded” to his requests to obtain medical records 

related to the treatment he received for hearing loss at 
3 WALKER v. DVA

the Fort Hamilton military hospital in 1962. The Secretary filed a brief response, acknowledging that the VA 

had failed to request, or otherwise account for, Walker’s 

treatment records from the Fort Hamilton military hospital. The Secretary further stated that “inasmuch as the 

record does not reflect that VA made any effort to assist 

[Walker] in obtaining records relevant to his claim, a 

remand is necessary to allow further development in 

accord with VA’s assistance obligations.” The Veterans 

Court thereafter vacated the board’s decision and remanded Walker’s claim “for further development in accord 

with the duty to assist.” 

Walker then appealed to this court, but, in November 

2010, his appeal was dismissed after he filed a motion to 

withdraw his appeal. In February 2011, the board remanded Walker’s claim to a VA regional office (“RO”). 

The board’s remand order directed the RO to: (1) request 

Walker’s medical records relating to treatment for hearing loss at the Fort Hamilton military hospital from 1962 

to the present; (2) notify Walker if such records could not 

be located; and (3) readjudicate Walker’s claim seeking 

service-connected benefits for hearing loss. Soon thereafter, Walker filed a petition for extraordinary relief in the 

nature of a writ of mandamus with the Veterans Court, 

arguing that the remand to obtain records from the Fort 

Hamilton military hospital was “another delay[] tactic by 

the [board] and a waste of time.” 

The Veterans Court denied Walker’s petition for a 

writ of mandamus, concluding that the board had properly remanded his claim to the RO in order to comply with 

the court’s order requiring the VA to attempt to obtain 

Walker’s medical treatment records. Walker then timely 

appealed to this court. 
WALKER v. DVA 4

II. 

“The remedy of mandamus is a drastic one, to be invoked only in extraordinary situations.” Kerr v. U.S. Dist. 

Court, 426 U.S. 394, 402 (1976). The writ should not be 

issued unless: (1) the petitioner has no other adequate 

means to attain the relief he desires; (2) the petitioner can 

demonstrate a clear and indisputable right to the issuance of the writ; and (3) the court is convinced that the 

circumstances warrant issuance of the writ. Cheney v. 

U.S. Dist. Court, 542 U.S. 367, 380-81 (2004). 

As the Veterans Court correctly concluded, issuance of 

a writ of mandamus was not appropriate here given that 

“the administrative appellate process provides Mr. 

Walker with an adequate alternative means to the relief 

he has requested.” Veterans Court Decision, 2011 U.S. 

App. Vet. Claims LEXIS 534, at *6. Walker seeks to 

obtain service-connected benefits for hearing loss in his 

left ear, and he will have an adequate opportunity to 

present his claim to the RO after the VA attempts to 

locate his relevant medical records. If the RO issues a 

decision adverse to Walker, he retains the right to appeal 

to the board, the Veterans Court, and this court. See 38 

U.S.C. §§ 7105, 7252, 7266, 7292. Because a writ of 

mandamus is “one of the most potent weapons in the 

judicial arsenal,” Cheney, 542 U.S. at 380 (citations and 

internal quotation marks omitted), it is to be used only 

“when no meaningful alternatives are available,” In re 

Newman, 763 F.2d 407, 410 (Fed. Cir. 1985). 

Walker asserts that remanding his claim to the RO 

for purposes of obtaining his medical treatment records 

will unnecessarily delay the resolution of his claim. It is 

well-established, however, “that the extraordinary writs 

cannot be used as substitutes for appeals, even though 

hardship may result from delay . . . .” Bankers Life & 
5 WALKER v. DVA

Cas. Co. v. Holland, 346 U.S. 379, 383 (1953) (citations 

omitted); U.S. Alkali Export Ass’n v. United States, 325 

U.S. 196, 202-03 (1945). Initial determinations on factual 

questions—such as whether a particular disorder was 

incurred or aggravated in service—are generally made by 

the RO rather than the board. See Lamb v. Principi, 284 

F.3d 1378, 1384 (Fed. Cir. 2002). Here, the remand will 

allow the RO to attempt to obtain Walker’s relevant 

medical records and to make an informed determination 

as to whether his hearing loss was incurred in service. 

Walker also contends that the board erred by failing 

to address whether or not his medical treatment records 

from the Fort Hamilton military hospital had been located. The board’s remand order, however, specifically 

requires the RO to request those records and to notify 

Walker if such records cannot be located. 

We likewise reject Walker’s argument that any attempt to locate his medical treatment records would be 

futile because the VA has already notified him that those 

records are unavailable. In 2003, Walker received a letter 

from the VA stating that it had no record that Walker had 

visited the audiology department at a VA medical center 

in Washington, D.C., in 1978. This letter does not, however, indicate that the VA has been unable to locate 

Walker’s treatment records from the Fort Hamilton 

military hospital. To the contrary, the VA has acknowledged that “there appear[] to be outstanding medical 

records identified by [Walker] regarding treatment for left 

ear hearing loss shortly after his discharge at Fort Hamilton military hospital in Brooklyn, New York, that have 

neither been requested nor accounted for by VA.” 

The bulk of Walker’s remaining arguments pertain to 

the merits of his claim, which is pending on remand. 

These arguments do not address issues decided by the 
WALKER v. DVA 6

Veterans Court in its March 16, 2011 decision denying 

Walker’s petition for a writ of mandamus and thus are not 

properly before this court. For the foregoing reasons, and 

because we find that Walker's remaining arguments are 

not persuasive, we affirm.