NOTE: Pursuant to Fed. Cir. R. 47.6, this disposition
is not citable as precedent. It is a public record.
United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
05-7167
BILLY R. KIDWELL,
Claimant-Appellant,
v.
R. JAMES NICHOLSON, Secretary of Veterans Affairs,
Respondent-Appellee.
___________________________
DECIDED: January 10, 2006
___________________________
Before RADER, BRYSON, and LINN, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM.
DECISION
Billy R. Kidwell appeals from a decision of the Court of Appeals for Veterans
Claims (“the Veterans Court”) denying his petition for a writ of mandamus. Kidwell v.
Nicholson, No. 04-2447 (Vet. App. Apr. 7, 2005). We affirm.
BACKGROUND
Mr. Kidwell, a veteran of the United States Army, was previously awarded service
connection for post-traumatic stress disorder, with an effective date of October 1, 1984.
In September 2003 Mr. Kidwell claimed clear and unmistakable error in the assignment
of that effective date, but a regional office of the Department of Veterans Affairs (“DVA”)
denied that claim. In January 2004 Mr. Kidwell submitted a statement in which he
argued that the effective date for the award should be October 8, 1970. The regional
office, however, denied that claim as well. In June 2004 the DVA received two
statements from Mr. Kidwell that the DVA accepted as Notices of Disagreement
challenging the two regional office decisions. However, in addition to commencing an
appeal of those decisions to the Board of Veterans’ Appeals by filing his Notices of
Disagreement, Mr. Kidwell filed a petition for a writ of mandamus with the Veterans
Court seeking an order granting him an earlier effective date for his award. The
Veterans Court denied the petition, and Mr. Kidwell appeals.
DISCUSSION
In support of his claims, Mr. Kidwell argues that various DVA officials have
illegally conspired to deny him the benefits to which he has been entitled since the early
1970s. Those allegations stem, in large part, from an application for compensation or
pension that Mr. Kidwell filed with the Veterans Administration in 1972. Mr. Kidwell
submitted to the Veterans Court a copy of that application with the words “Destroy This”
handwritten on the face of the document. He asserts that someone at the Veterans
Administration wrote that note on the document as part of the alleged conspiracy. That
act, according to Mr. Kidwell, was the first in a series of what he refers to as criminal
acts by the Veterans Administration that he alleges had the effect of preventing him
from obtaining service connection for his disorder until the mid-1980s.
In response to that allegation, the DVA produced from its files a copy of the
original application, which did not contain the handwritten note. The DVA also
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submitted a sworn affidavit by the manager of the regional office in St. Petersburg,
Florida, representing that the original document in the DVA’s claims file bears no such
handwritten notation.
Although this court has jurisdiction to review a denial of a petition for a writ of
mandamus by the Veterans Court, the issuance of such a writ is a matter within the
discretion of the Veterans Court. Lamb v. Principi, 284 F.3d 1378, 1381, 1384 (Fed.
Cir. 2002). In this case, the Veterans Court explained that Mr. Kidwell had an
alternative way to obtain the relief he seeks, and it concluded that he has not
demonstrated a clear and indisputable right to the relief he seeks (i.e., an earlier
effective date for his service connected disorder).
The court’s conclusions are well founded. As the court indicated, Mr. Kidwell is
free to pursue his allegations by appealing the regional office decisions to the Board of
Veterans’ Appeals, and ultimately to the Veterans Court and this court. However,
“extraordinary writs cannot be used as substitutes for appeals.” Bankers Life & Cas.
Co. v. Holland, 346 U.S. 379, 383 (1953). In this case, what Mr. Kidwell is seeking is to
short-circuit the appeal process within the veterans’ claims system, which is not an
appropriate use of the writ of mandamus. Thus, Mr. Kidwell must pursue the ordinary
appellate process to seek review of the effective date for his service-connected
disorder.
05-7167 3