NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential. 

United States Court of Appeals

for the Federal Circuit

______________________ 

PHILLIP A. JONES,

Claimant-Appellant

v.

DAT TRAN, ACTING SECRETARY OF VETERANS 

AFFAIRS,

Respondent-Appellee

______________________ 

2020-1571 

______________________ 

Appeal from the United States Court of Appeals for 

Veterans Claims in No. 19-5422, Chief Judge Margaret C. 

Bartley. 

______________________ 

Decided: February 9, 2021 

______________________ 

PHILLIP A. JONES, Atlanta, GA, pro se. 

ALBERT S. IAROSSI, Commercial Litigation Branch, 

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

JEFFREY B. CLARK, CLAUDIA BURKE, ROBERT EDWARD

KIRSCHMAN, JR. 

______________________ 

Case: 20-1571 Document: 35 Page: 1 Filed: 02/09/2021
2 JONES v. TRAN

Before DYK, MAYER, and CHEN, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM. 

Phillip A. Jones appeals a judgment of the United 

States Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims (“Veterans 

Court”) denying his petition for a writ of mandamus. See

Jones v. Wilkie, No. 19-5422, 2019 U.S. App. Vet. Claims 

LEXIS 1877 (Oct. 25, 2019) (“Veterans Court Decision”). 

For the reasons discussed below, we affirm.

BACKGROUND

Jones filed a petition for a writ of mandamus with the 

Veterans Court on August 5, 2019. His petition asserted 

that mandamus was necessary to compel the Department 

of Veterans Affairs (“VA”) to expeditiously process his 

claim for service connection for bilateral hand conditions in 

accordance with the terms of a joint motion for remand 

granted by the Veterans Court in July 2015. Jones also 

requested that the Veterans Court hold the Secretary in 

contempt for allegedly forcing him to enter his appeal into 

the Rapid Appeals Modernization Program, Pub. L. No. 

115-55, 131 Stat. 1105 (2017). Additionally, Jones asked

the court to issue “an emergency injunction to sustain [his]

claims submitted [] 10/15/2018.” Veterans Court Decision,

2019 U.S. App. Vet. Claims LEXIS 1877, at *1 (citation and

internal quotation marks omitted).

On October 25, 2019, the Veterans Court denied Jones’ 

petition, stating that he had “failed to demonstrate entitlement to a writ of mandamus on any basis.” Id. at *4. According to the court, Jones had not demonstrated that a 

writ compelling the VA to expeditiously process his claim 

for service connection for bilateral hand conditions was 

warranted given that both the VA Regional Office (“RO”) 

and the Board of Veterans’ Appeals (“board”) had “actively 

processed” his claim “without unreasonable delay.” Id. at 

*5. Since Jones had appealed his claim to the board, moreover, the court concluded that he had “failed to

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JONES v. TRAN 3

demonstrate that he lack[ed] adequate alternative means 

to obtain a more favorable decision on” that claim. Id. at 

*6.

The Veterans Court further concluded that Jones had 

failed to show that the VA coerced him into entering his 

claim for bilateral hand conditions into the Rapid Appeals 

Modernization Program “or otherwise committed an offence necessitating a contempt order.” Id. Finally, the 

court determined that to the extent Jones was seeking “an 

injunction to ‘sustain’ the grants of service connection for 

degenerative arthritis of the lumbar spine and right lower 

extremity radiculopathy, no judicial action [was] necessary 

because the VA cannot, absent a finding of clear and unmistakable error in the October 2018 RO decision, reverse 

those grants on appeal.” Id. at *7–8. Jones subsequently 

appealed to this court.

DISCUSSION

This court’s authority to review decisions of the Veterans Court is limited. We have jurisdiction to “decide all 

relevant questions of law, including interpreting constitutional and statutory provisions.” 38 U.S.C. § 7292(d)(1). 

Except where a constitutional claim is raised, however, 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.” Id. § 7292(d)(2); see Wanless v. 

Shinseki, 618 F.3d 1333, 1336 (Fed. Cir. 2010).

Under the All Writs Act, a petitioner may seek a writ 

of mandamus from the Veterans Court. See 28 U.S.C. 

§ 1651(a); Martin v. O’Rourke, 891 F.3d 1338, 1342–43

(Fed. Cir. 2018); Cox v. West, 149 F.3d 1360, 1363–64 (Fed.

Cir. 1998). Importantly, however, “[t]he remedy of mandamus is a drastic one, to be invoked only in extraordinary

situations.” Kerr v. U.S. Dist. Ct. for the N. Dist. of Cal.,

426 U.S. 394, 402 (1976). The writ should be granted only

where: (1) the petitioner has “no other adequate means to

attain” the desired relief; (2) the petitioner can establish

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4 JONES v. TRAN

that the right to the relief is “clear and indisputable”; and 

(3) the issuing court, exercising its discretion, determines

that the remedy “is appropriate under the circumstances.”

Cheney v. U.S. Dist. Ct. for the Dist. of D.C., 542 U.S. 367,

380–81 (2004) (citations and internal quotation marks

omitted). Furthermore, where, as here, the petitioner

seeks relief from “unreasonable delay” in a VA proceeding,

the Veterans Court must additionally evaluate the factors

set out in Telecommunications Research and Action Center

v. Federal Communications Commission (“TRAC”), 750

F.2d 70, 79 (D.C. Cir. 1984) (explaining that the overarching inquiry in analyzing a claim of unreasonable delay is

“whether the agency’s delay is so egregious as to warrant

mandamus” and identifying six factors relevant to addressing this question); see Martin, 891 F.3d at 1348 (holding

that the TRAC factors provide an appropriate framework

for analyzing mandamus petitions alleging unreasonable

delay in VA proceedings).

Although Jones is understandably frustrated by the delays in processing his claim, we discern no legal error in the 

Veterans Court’s decision to deny his petition for a writ of 

mandamus. See Mote v. Wilkie, 976 F.3d 1337, 1340 (Fed. 

Cir. 2020) (“The proper legal standard for the Veterans 

Court to use in deciding mandamus petitions is an issue 

within this court’s jurisdiction.”). The Veterans Court applied the TRAC factors in assessing whether Jones was entitled to a writ compelling the VA to more expeditiously 

process his claim seeking service connection for bilateral 

hand conditions. See Veterans Court Decision, 2019 U.S. 

App. Vet. Claims LEXIS 1877, at *3–6. It determined, however, that issuance of the writ was not justified because 

neither the board nor the RO had unreasonably delayed in 

processing that claim. Id. at *5. In this regard, the Veterans Court concluded that although the RO did not decide 

Jones’ claim “within its stated goal of 125 days after [he] 

opted into [the Rapid Appeals Modernization Program],” 

the “RO’s July 2019 decision list[ed] over three pages of 

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JONES v. TRAN 5

evidence received and development activities undertaken 

following the [Veteran Court’s] remand that appear[ed] to 

justify deviation from that timeline.” Id. As we have previously made clear, in determining whether a delay is so 

egregious as to warrant the issuance of a writ of mandamus, a court may properly “consider whether the delays are 

due in part to the VA’s statutory duty to assist a claimant 

in developing his or her case.” Martin, 891 F.3d at 1346.

On appeal, Jones argues that the Veterans Court erred 

in failing to review certain documentation related to his 

claim that he was “coerced” into submitting his claim for 

bilateral hand conditions into the Rapid Appeals Modernization Program. The fact that the Veterans Court did not 

specifically discuss every document submitted by Jones, 

however, does not mean that the court did not adequately 

assess the issue of whether he was coerced into submitting 

his claim into the Rapid Appeals Modernization Program. 

See, e.g., Gonzales v. West, 218 F.3d 1378, 1381 (Fed. Cir. 

2000). To the extent Jones asks this court to reweigh the 

evidence regarding his claim that the VA “lure[d]” him into 

participating in the program, moreover, we are, as discussed previously, without jurisdiction to “review the factual merits of [a] veteran’s claim” or to otherwise “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.” Beasley v. Shinseki, 709 F.3d 1154, 1158 

(Fed. Cir. 2013).

In his appeal brief, Jones asks this court to compel the 

VA to award him service connection for his bilateral hand 

conditions and to assign an October 2010 effective date for 

that award. He also requests that we award him compensation for peripheral neuropathy. A writ of mandamus, 

however, may not be used as an alternative appellate pathway. See, e.g., Bankers Life & Cas. Co. v. Holland, 346 U.S. 

379, 383 (1953) (“The office of a writ of mandamus [may 

not] be enlarged to actually control the decision of the trial 

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6 JONES v. TRAN

court rather than used in its traditional function of confining a court to its prescribed jurisdiction.”); Lamb v. Principi, 284 F.3d 1378, 1384 (Fed. Cir. 2002) (explaining that 

a writ of mandamus cannot be used as a substitute for an 

appeal). We have considered Jones’ remaining arguments 

but do not find them persuasive.

CONCLUSION

Accordingly, the judgment of the United States Court 

of Appeals for Veterans Claims is affirmed.

AFFIRMED

COSTS

No costs.

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