Case: 20-1580 Document: 30 Page: 1 Filed: 08/04/2020
NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.
United States Court of Appeals
for the Federal Circuit
______________________
EDDY JEAN PHILIPPEAUX,
Claimant-Appellant
v.
ROBERT WILKIE, SECRETARY OF VETERANS
AFFAIRS,
Respondent-Appellee
______________________
2020-1580
______________________
Appeal from the United States Court of Appeals for
Veterans Claims in No. 19-4233, Judge Coral Wong Pi-
etsch.
______________________
Decided: August 4, 2020
______________________
EDDY JEAN PHILIPPEAUX, Miami, FL, pro se.
LIRIDONA SINANI, Commercial Litigation Branch, Civil
Division, United States Department of Justice, Washing-
ton, DC, for respondent-appellee. Also represented by
ETHAN P. DAVIS, ELIZABETH MARIE HOSFORD, ROBERT
EDWARD KIRSCHMAN, JR.; AMANDA BLACKMON, Y. KEN LEE,
Office of General Counsel, United States Department of
Veterans Affairs, Washington, DC.
Case: 20-1580 Document: 30 Page: 2 Filed: 08/04/2020
2 PHILIPPEAUX v. WILKIE
______________________
Before LOURIE, MOORE, and O’MALLEY, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM.
Eddy J. Philippeaux appeals from a decision of the
United States Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims (“Vet-
erans Court”) denying his petition for a writ of mandamus.
See Philippeaux v. Wilkie, No. 19-4233, 2019 WL 6331379
(Vet. App. Nov. 27, 2019). For the reasons discussed below,
we affirm.
I. BACKGROUND
Philippeaux served on active duty in the military for
nine years, intermittently between 1972 and 1985.
In 1995, 1 Philippeaux filed a compensation claim with
the Department of Veterans Affairs (“VA”), seeking service
connection for a nervous condition and stomach disorder.
On February 12, 1997, the VA sent Philippeaux a letter in-
forming him that, after considering all the evidence, it had
determined that he did not qualify for compensation. The
VA included with the letter its February 7, 1997 Rating De-
cision. On February 20, 1997, Philippeaux filed a Notice of
Disagreement (“NOD”).
In July 2019, Philippeaux filed a petition for a writ of
mandamus in the Veterans Court. He asked the Veterans
Court to direct the Secretary to award him a 100 percent
disability rating for hyperthyroidism based on his 1995
compensation claim. Philippeaux contended that his claim
had been pending and unadjudicated since 1995 because
1 The record is not clear as to whether Philippeaux’s
initial claim was filed in 1995 or 1996. See Appellee’s App.
20, 28 n.1. We do not attempt to determine which year is
correct and use 1995 because that is the year adopted by
the Veterans Court. Id. at 4.
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PHILIPPEAUX v. WILKIE 3
the Secretary failed to issue a Statement of the Case in re-
sponse to his February 20, 1997 NOD.
The Veterans Court denied Philippeaux’s petition. It
reasoned that Philippeaux failed to demonstrate that he is
clearly entitled to the writ or that he lacks adequate alter-
native means to obtain relief. The Veterans Court ex-
plained that intervening VA decisions have denied
Philippeaux service connection for hyperthyroidism. Spe-
cifically, in a VA denial of service connection issued in
2017, the agency found that the medical evidence failed to
establish that Philippeaux had hyperthyroidism.
Philippeaux did not appeal the 2017 decision. The Veter-
ans Court also discussed ongoing proceedings relating to
hyperthyroidism as a secondary or residual of traumatic
brain injury. The court concluded that the ongoing pro-
ceeding was sufficient to provide Philippeaux appropriate
relief, if any.
Philippeaux appeals.
II. DISCUSSION
Our jurisdiction over appeals from the Veterans Court
is limited. 38 U.S.C. § 7292. We generally cannot review
challenges to factual determinations or challenges to a law
or regulation as applied to the facts of a case. Harris v.
Shinseki, 704 F.3d 946, 948 (Fed. Cir. 2013) (citing 38
U.S.C. § 7292(d)(2)). Thus, when a veteran appeals from a
denial of a writ of mandamus, “[w]e may not review the
factual merits of the veteran’s claim, but we may determine
whether the petitioner has satisfied the legal standard for
issuing the writ. In conducting such a review, we do not
interfere with the [Veterans Court’s] role as the final ap-
pellate 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).
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4 PHILIPPEAUX v. WILKIE
The Veterans Court has authority to grant a writ of
mandamus if the veteran has established: “(1) that he has
a clear legal right to relief; (2) that there are no adequate
alternative legal channels through which the petitioner
may obtain that relief, and (3) that the grant of mandamus
relief is appropriate under the circumstances.” Id. at 1157.
“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, 401 (1976).
Philippeaux does not argue the Veterans Court misin-
terpreted a legal standard, statute, or regulation. Rather,
Philippeaux argues it is indisputable that he has hyperthy-
roidism and the Secretary has left his claim pending for
twenty-five years. The Veterans Court, however, only ap-
plied settled law to the facts of this case. We discern no
legal error in the Veterans Court’s conclusion that, because
Philippeaux was able and continues to pursue claims relat-
ing to hyperthyroidism, he is not entitled to the writ of
mandamus.
Philippeaux separately argues that he has been denied
due process as a result of an alleged delay in the resolution
of his 1995 claims and that the alleged delay deprived him
of a constitutionally protected interest in service-connec-
tion for his disability. These issues were not a basis for the
Veterans Court’s decision nor were they raised by
Philippeaux in support of his petition. They are, therefore,
not properly before us as we review the Veterans Court’s
denial of mandamus.
III. CONCLUSION
We have considered all of Philippeaux’s remaining ar-
guments and conclude that they are without merit. For the
reasons discussed above, we affirm the Veterans Court.
AFFIRMED
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PHILIPPEAUX v. WILKIE 5
COSTS
No costs.