George Dunbar Prewitt, Jr. v. Douglas A. Collins, Secretary of Veterans Affairs

NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.
United States Court of Appeals
for the Federal Circuit
______________________
GEORGE DUNBAR PREWITT, JR.,
Claimant-Appellant
v.
DOUGLAS A. COLLINS, SECRETARY OF
VETERANS AFFAIRS,
Respondent-Appellee
______________________
2025-1523
______________________
Appeal from the United States Court of Appeals for
Veterans Claims in No. 24-5248, Judge Joseph L. Falvey,
Jr.
______________________
Decided: November 21, 2025
______________________
G EORGE D UNBAR P REWITT, JR., Greenville, MS, pro se.
D ANIEL H OFFMAN , Commercial Litigation Branch, Civil
Division, United States Department of Justice, Washing-
ton, DC, for respondent-appellee. Also represented by
ELIZABETH M ARIE H OSFORD , PATRICIA M. M CCARTHY,
BRETT SHUMATE ; EVAN SCOTT G RANT, B RIAN D. G RIFFIN ,
Office of General Counsel, United States Department of
Veterans Affairs, Washington, DC.
Case: 25-1523 Document: 22 Page: 1 Filed: 11/21/2025

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PREWITT v. COLLINS 2
______________________
Before LOURIE, SCHALL, and STOLL, Circuit Judges.
PER C URIAM.
George D. Prewitt, Jr., proceeding pro se, appeals from
the final decision of the United States Court of Appeals for
Veterans Claims denying his petition for extraordinary re-
lief in the form of a writ of mandamus. To the extent that
Mr. Prewitt raises a constitutional question within our lim-
ited jurisdiction, we affirm.
BACKGROUND
Mr. Prewitt was drafted into the United States Army
on March 12, 1968, and honorably discharged on March 11,
1970. While serving as an infantry soldier in the Vietnam
War, Mr. Prewitt suffered a gunshot wound to the neck.
Mr. Prewitt sought disability benefits for this injury and
was awarded benefits based on a 30% disability rating.
Mr. Prewitt has since sought, with some success, to attain
an increase in his disability rating and an earlier effective
date for any such increase. His efforts have entailed nu-
merous appeals.
At issue here is Mr. Prewitt’s petition for a writ of man-
damus at the Veterans Court, in which he appeared to ask
the Veterans Court to (1) compel the Board of Veterans’ Ap-
peals to issue a decision addressing remand directives from
the Veterans Court and claims that we determined were
intertwined with the remanded portions of the Veterans
Court’s decision, and (2) order the return of illegal exac-
tions taken from Mr. Prewitt. See Prewitt v. Wilkie, No. 19-
5262, 2020 WL 4103039, at *5–6 (Vet. App. July 21, 2020)
(remanding claims); Prewitt v. McDonough, 856 F. App’x
280, 282–83 (Fed. Cir. 2021) (declining to review
Mr. Prewitt’s constitutional challenges because they are
“inextricably intertwined” with the remanded portions of
the Veterans Court’s decision). The Veterans Court denied
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PREWITT v. COLLINS 3
Mr. Prewitt’s petition on October 16, 2024,1 concluding
that Mr. Prewitt sought to use mandamus to litigate the
merits of the Department of Veterans Affairs’ actions, not
to compel a decision that has been unreasonably delayed.
SAppx 2.2 The Veterans Court also denied Mr. Prewitt’s
petition because he had an alternative remedy to manda-
mus through an appeal, and a writ cannot be used to sub-
stitute for the appellate process. Id.
Mr. Prewitt appeals, and we have jurisdiction under
38 U.S.C. § 7292(a).
D ISCUSSION
The scope of our review in an appeal from a Veterans
Court decision is limited. Wanless v. Shinseki, 618 F.3d
1333, 1336 (Fed. Cir. 2010). We may review a decision by
the Veterans Court concerning whether to grant a manda-
mus petition when the petition raises a non-frivolous legal
question, such as a constitutional issue or the interpreta-
tion of a regulation or statute that was relied on by the Vet-
erans Court. See Beasley v. Shinseki, 709 F.3d 1154, 1157–
58 (Fed. Cir. 2013); Lamb v. Principi, 284 F.3d 1378, 1381–
82 (Fed. Cir. 2002); see also 38 U.S.C. § 7292(a), (d). We
review denial of a petition for a writ of mandamus for
“abuse[] [of] discretion or . . . other legal error.” Lamb,
284 F.3d at 1384. “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
1 The Veterans Court first issued an order denying
Mr. Prewitt’s petition on October 3, 2024. However,
Mr. Prewitt moved for reconsideration the following day.
The court then granted Mr. Prewitt’s motion, withdrew the
October 3 order, and issued the order now before us.
2 We refer to the Supplemental Appendix filed with
Appellee’s informal response brief as “SAppx” throughout
this opinion. See ECF No. 8.
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PREWITT v. COLLINS 4
the application of veterans’ benefits law to the particular
facts of a veteran’s case.” Beasley, 709 F.3d at 1158; see
38 U.S.C. § 7292(d)(2).
Here, the Veterans Court did not abuse its discretion
or commit legal error in denying Mr. Prewitt’s petition.
The Veterans Court considered the three conditions re-
quired to issue a writ of mandamus and determined that
Mr. Prewitt failed to satisfy the first requirement, i.e., that
he has no other adequate means to attain the desired relief.
SAppx 3–4 (citing Cheney v. U.S. Dist. Ct. for D.C.,
542 U.S. 367, 380–81 (2004)). The Veterans Court
acknowledged that the four-year delay in adjudicating
Mr. Prewitt’s remanded claims “raises the specter of un-
reasonable delay,” SAppx 3, but the Veterans Court deter-
mined that Mr. Prewitt does not argue unreasonable delay
under the TRAC factors. SAppx 3–4 & nn.1–2; Martin
v. O’Rourke, 891 F.3d 1338, 1344–45 (Fed. Cir. 2018) (cit-
ing Telecomms. Rsch. & Action Ctr. v. FCC, 750 F.2d 70,
79–80 (D.C. Cir. 1984) (TRAC)) (adopting the TRAC stand-
ard for the Veterans Court to use in evaluating mandamus
petitions alleging unreasonable delay by the VA). Based
on those well-established factors, the Veterans Court de-
termined that the facts did not justify the extraordinary
remedy of a writ of mandamus. SAppx 3–5.
Mr. Prewitt does not argue that the Veterans Court
misstated the legal standard for evaluating whether to
grant a writ of mandamus; nor does he adequately argue
that the Veterans Court interpreted or elaborated on the
meaning of any statute or regulation. Instead, Mr. Prewitt
focuses on the merits of his underlying claims, including
arguments that the VA violated regulations when adjudi-
cating his claims. Appellant’s Inf. Br. 12 (arguing that the
VA violated 38 C.F.R. § 3.103 when it allegedly failed to
provide notice of appellate rights with a 1970 rating deci-
sion), 13–14 (arguing that the VA violated 38 C.F.R.
§§ 4.27 and 4.72 when evaluating his injury). Further,
Mr. Prewitt argues that the Veterans Court failed to
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PREWITT v. COLLINS 5
appreciate what constitutes a legacy appeal under
38 C.F.R. § 19.2, which would determine whether the VA
should have issued a Supplemental Statement of the Case
and returned his illegal exactions dispute to the Board. Ap-
pellant’s Inf. Br. 23–25.
The Veterans Court, however, did not rely on an inter-
pretation of 38 C.F.R. § 19.2 in denying Mr. Prewitt’s peti-
tion. See SAppx 4. Instead, the Veterans Court
determined that the question of whether Mr. Prewitt’s ap-
peal is a legacy appeal was “not dispositive” in part because
Mr. Prewitt had not shown that the administrative process
is not a viable path to obtain the remedy he seeks. Id. And
to the extent that Mr. Prewitt sought to challenge the VA’s
decisions on the merits of his claims, the Veterans Court
explained that a mandamus petition is not the appropriate
vehicle for such a challenge. See SAppx 3 (citing Wolfe
v. McDonough, 28 F.4th 1348, 1357 (Fed. Cir. 2022) (“It is
well established that mandamus is unavailable when there
is an adequate remedy by appeal.”)). Because Mr. Prewitt
failed to raise a legal issue, we lack jurisdiction to consider
these arguments.
We also recognize that Mr. Prewitt has characterized
at least some of his arguments as constitutional issues,3
3 See Appellant’s Inf. Br. 1, 16–20, 29 (alleging that
the Veterans’ Judicial Review Act violates Articles I, II,
and III and the Seventh Amendment of the Constitution
because it does not afford him the right to adjudicate his
claim before a jury in an Article III court); Appellant’s Inf.
Br. 11–12, 29 (alleging that the VA’s failure to provide
Mr. Prewitt with notice of appellate rights in his 1970 VA
rating decision violated his Equal Protection and Due Pro-
cess rights); Appellant’s Inf. Br. 1–2, 25–27 (alleging tak-
ings clause violations related to his body, labor, and illegal
exactions involved in an overpayment dispute); Appellant’s
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PREWITT v. COLLINS 6
and we generally have jurisdiction to review constitutional
issues raised in an appeal. See 38 U.S.C. § 7292(d)(2).
However, the Veterans Court did not decide any constitu-
tional issues, and the characterization of an argument as
constitutional does not necessarily make it so. See Helfer
v. West, 174 F.3d 1332, 1335 (Fed. Cir. 1999); SAppx 2.
Here, the majority of Mr. Prewitt’s purported constitu-
tional arguments are challenges to the decisions on the
merits of his claims and disagreements over the Veterans
Court’s denial of mandamus, which we may not review. See
Beasley, 709 F.3d at 1158; see also 38 U.S.C. § 7292(d)(2).
But Mr. Prewitt’s “characterization of [a] question as con-
stitutional in nature does not confer upon us jurisdiction
that we otherwise lack.” See Helfer, 174 F.3d at 1335. We
thus have no jurisdiction to consider these arguments.
However, to the extent that Mr. Prewitt raises a con-
stitutional argument separate from his contention that the
Veterans Court erred in denying the merits of his claims,
that argument is within the scope of our jurisdiction. The
primary constitutional issue raised by Mr. Prewitt on ap-
peal and in his petition for writ of mandamus is that his
Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial was violated by
the VA’s adjudication of his claims. “While the Seventh
Amendment provides the right to a jury trial in civil suits
at common law, it is not ‘implicated in the VA adjudication
process.’” Mathis v. Shinseki, 494 F. App’x 78, 81 (Fed. Cir.
2012) (first quoting Paswell v. Nicholson, 21 Vet. App. 102,
2006 WL 2106952, at *2 (2006); then citing Tull v. United
States, 481 U.S. 412, 418 n.4 (1987) (“[T]he Seventh
Amendment is not applicable to administrative proceed-
ings . . . .”)). Rather, the granting of public benefits such as
Inf. Br. 29 (alleging that the Veterans Court’s refusal to or-
der the Secretary to weigh in on the due process, equal pro-
tection, and takings clause issues previously remanded
justifies mandamus).
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PREWITT v. COLLINS 7
payments to veterans has long been held to fall within the
“public rights” exception to the Seventh Amendment. See
Sec. & Exch. Comm’n v. Jarkesy, 603 U.S. 109, 130 (2024).
Thus, although we have jurisdiction to consider
Mr. Prewitt’s constitutional claim under the Seventh
Amendment, we conclude that his argument is without
merit.
CONCLUSION
We have considered Mr. Prewitt’s remaining argu-
ments but find them unpersuasive. For the foregoing rea-
sons, we affirm the Veterans Court’s decision to deny
Mr. Prewitt’s mandamus petition.
AFFIRMED
COSTS
No costs.
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