Court Opinion

ID: 9381208
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-03-22 14:00:50.661819+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:17:30.778885
License: Public Domain

Case: 23-1062   Document: 22     Page: 1   Filed: 03/22/2023

        NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.

   United States Court of Appeals
       for the Federal Circuit
                 ______________________

                   JOHN F. BROOKS,
                   Claimant-Appellant

                            v.

       DENIS MCDONOUGH, SECRETARY OF
              VETERANS AFFAIRS,
               Respondent-Appellee
              ______________________

                       2023-1062
                 ______________________

     Appeal from the United States Court of Appeals for
 Veterans Claims in No. 22-2149, Judge Coral Wong Pi-
 etsch.
                 ______________________

                 Decided: March 22, 2023
                 ______________________

    JOHN F. BROOKS, Tacoma, WA, pro se.

      EVAN WISSER, Commercial Litigation Branch, Civil Di-
 vision, United States Department of Justice, Washington,
 DC, for respondent-appellee. Also represented by BRIAN M.
 BOYNTON, WILLIAM JAMES GRIMALDI, PATRICIA M.
 MCCARTHY; CHRISTINA LYNN GREGG, BRIAN D. GRIFFIN, Of-
 fice of General Counsel, United States Department of Vet-
 erans Affairs, Washington, DC.
Case: 23-1062    Document: 22      Page: 2    Filed: 03/22/2023

 2                                     BROOKS   v. MCDONOUGH

                   ______________________

     Before CHEN, MAYER, and HUGHES, Circuit Judges.
 PER CURIAM.
     John F. Brooks appeals an order of the United States
 Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims (Veterans Court)
 denying-in-part and dismissing-in-part his petition for a
 writ of mandamus. Brooks v. McDonough, No. 22-2149,
 2022 WL 3224506, at *6 (Vet. App. Aug. 10, 2022) (Veterans
 Court Decision). We affirm the Veterans Court’s decision
 as to the writ of mandamus and dismiss the parts of the
 appeal over which we do not have jurisdiction.
                        BACKGROUND
      Mr. Brooks served in the United States Army from Feb-
 ruary 1966 to May 1971. SAppx. 27. 1 In August 2018, Mr.
 Brooks submitted a claim alleging clear and unmistakable
 error (CUE) in a June 1972 rating decision that granted
 service connection for a thigh muscle injury and a skin con-
 dition. SAppx. 165–166. On June 19, 2020, the regional
 office (RO) denied both CUE claims, SAppx. 78–83, and Mr.
 Brooks filed a notice of disagreement (NOD) and appealed
 to the Board of Veterans’ Appeals (Board), SAppx. 71.
     On January 25, 2022, the Board found CUE with re-
 spect to Mr. Brooks’s skin condition claim and remanded
 the issue of CUE with respect to the thigh muscle claim.
 SAppx. 40. As to the thigh muscle claim, the Board ex-
 plained that it could not determine whether a CUE as to
 the original rating occurred because the June 1972 rating
 decision relied on an x-ray report, and the photocopy of that
 report in the claims file was almost completely illegible.
 SAppx. 47. The Board thus ordered the Department of

     1    “SAppx.” citations herein refer to the appendix
 filed concurrently with Respondent’s brief.
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 BROOKS   v. MCDONOUGH                                       3

 Veterans Affairs (VA) to “make all reasonable efforts to lo-
 cate and associate with the claims file th[e] full x-ray image
 report.” Id.
     On April 11, 2022, Mr. Brooks filed a petition for a writ
 of mandamus with the Veterans Court regarding his thigh
 muscle claim. Veterans Court Decision, 2022 WL 3224506,
 at *1. Mr. Brooks asked the Veterans Court to: (1) compel
 the Board to issue a decision on his August 2018 CUE
 claim, (2) compel the RO to complete, in an expedited man-
 ner, its efforts to comply with the Board’s January 2022 re-
 mand instructions, and (3) compel the Board to provide an
 estimate on when it would issue a decision. Id.
     On May 11, 2022, the RO notified Mr. Brooks that at-
 tempts to locate his 1972 x-ray records were unsuccessful.
 SAppx. 32–35. On May 17, 2022, the RO issued a decision
 finding no CUE in its original 1972 rating decision as to
 Mr. Brooks’s thigh muscle injury. SAppx. 27–30. Mr.
 Brooks did not file a NOD in response.
      On August 10, 2022, the Veterans Court denied-in-part
 and dismissed-in-part Mr. Brooks’s mandamus petition.
 Veterans Court Decision, 2022 WL 3224506, at *6. To the
 extent Mr. Brooks desired a new Board decision in addition
 to the Board’s January 25, 2022 decision, the court held
 that Mr. Brooks must file a timely NOD of the May 2022
 rating decision to obtain a Board decision on his CUE mo-
 tion. Id. at *4. Likewise, the court ruled that any sought-
 for estimate on when the Board would issue a decision was
 contingent on first filing a NOD. Id. The court also dis-
 missed as moot Mr. Brooks’s request to compel the RO to
 complete the Board’s remand instructions because the RO
 completed those instructions when it issued the May 2022
 decision. Id. at *5. Mr. Brooks timely appealed.
                         DISCUSSION
     The scope of our review of a Veterans Court decision is
 limited. We have jurisdiction to “review and decide any
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 4                                     BROOKS   v. MCDONOUGH

 challenge to the validity of any statute or regulation or any
 interpretation thereof.” 38 U.S.C. § 7292(c). Except to the
 extent that an 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.” Id. § 7292(d)(2).
     With respect to the court’s denial of a mandamus peti-
 tion, we “may not review the factual merits of the veteran’s
 claim” but may “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) (emphasis added). We may de-
 termine “whether the petitioner has satisfied the legal
 standard for issuing the writ.” Id. In order to prevail on
 his request for mandamus, Mr. Brooks was required to
 show that: (1) he has a clear and indisputable legal right
 to the writ, (2) he has no other adequate avenue of obtain-
 ing relief, and (3) the writ is warranted under the circum-
 stances. See Cheney v. U.S. Dist. Ct. for D.C., 542 U.S. 367,
 380–81 (2004). We review the Veterans Court’s denial of a
 petition for a writ of mandamus for abuse of discretion.
 Lamb v. Principi, 284 F.3d 1378, 1384 (Fed. Cir. 2002).
     Mr. Brooks appears to argue that the Veterans Court
 erred in determining that his claims were subject to the
 Appeals Modernization Act (AMA), and that under the
 AMA, Mr. Brooks was first required to file a NOD to appeal
 the RO’s May 2022 decision back to the Board. Appellant's
 Informal Br. 1. To the extent Mr. Brooks challenges
 whether his claims are subject to the AMA, that is beyond
 our jurisdiction. To the extent Mr. Brooks challenges that,
 under the AMA, he is not required to submit a new NOD
 in the face of the RO’s May 2022 rating decision, he fails to
 explain why. See 38 U.S.C § 7105 (“Appellate review shall
 be initiated by the filing of a notice of disagreement”); see
 also 38 C.F.R. 20.800(a) (explaining how contents of a no-
 tice of disagreement affects docketing priority at the
 Board); see also Military-Veterans Advoc. v. Sec’y of
Case: 23-1062     Document: 22     Page: 5    Filed: 03/22/2023

 BROOKS   v. MCDONOUGH                                       5

 Veterans Affs., 7 F4th 1110, 1119 (Fed. Cir. 2021) (“The
 third lane is a direct appeal to the Board, which a claimant
 initiates by filing a NOD”).
      We determine that the Veterans Court did not abuse
 its discretion or commit legal error in denying Mr. Brooks’s
 petition. The Veterans Court denied parts of Mr. Brooks’s
 mandamus petition because he failed to show that he had
 no other adequate avenue in obtaining a Board decision on
 his CUE claims and an estimate as to when the Board
 would render that decision. Id. at *4. The Veterans Court
 determined that Mr. Brooks may obtain the requested re-
 lief by appealing the RO’s rating decision in the normal
 course to the Board by filing a NOD, which renders man-
 damus improper. The Veterans Court’s finding of an ade-
 quate alternative avenue of relief is neither an abuse of
 discretion nor a legal error. Moreover, we note that Mr.
 Brooks may still file a NOD before May 2023 and obtain
 the Board review he requests. See 38 U.S.C. §7105(b)(1)(A)
 (“A notice of disagreement shall be filed within one year
 from the date of the issuance of the notice of the decision of
 the agency of original jurisdiction”).
     Mr. Brooks also requested mandamus to compel the RO
 to comply with the Board’s January 2022 remand instruc-
 tions. Id. at *1. The Veterans Court dismissed because it
 found that the RO had already complied with the remand
 and issued a rating decision. Id. at *5. We find no abuse
 of discretion or legal error in the Veterans Court’s holding.
      Mr. Brooks also argues that the Veterans Court vio-
 lated due process by denying panel review under Veterans
 Court Rule 35. See Appellant’s Informal Br. 7. However,
 we lack jurisdiction to review the Veterans Court’s denial
 of panel review, and denying panel review is not a consti-
 tutional violation. Arensen v. Principi, 300 F.3d 1353, 1360
 (Fed. Cir. 2002) (no due process violation with respect to
 Veterans Court denial of panel review or full court review
 of single-judge decisions).
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 6                                    BROOKS   v. MCDONOUGH

                        CONCLUSION
    We have considered Mr. Brooks’s remaining arguments
 but find them unpersuasive. We affirm the Veterans
 Court’s decision as to the writ of mandamus. For those is-
 sues in Mr. Brooks’s appeal for which we lack jurisdiction,
 we dismiss.
     AFFIRMED-IN-PART AND DISMISSED-IN-PART
                           COSTS
 No costs.