United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ______________________

GENE S. GROVES, Claimant-Appellant

v.

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

2021-2081 ______________________

Appeal from the United States Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims in No. 17-3084, Chief Judge Margaret C. Bartley, Judge Amanda L. Meredith, Judge Joseph L. Falvey, Jr. ______________________

Decided: May 17, 2022 ______________________

GENE S. GROVES, Shafter, TX, pro se.

JOSEPH ALAN PIXLEY, Commercial Litigation Branch, Civil Division, United States Department of Justice, Wash- ington, DC, argued for respondent-appellee. Also repre- sented by BRIAN M. BOYNTON, CLAUDIA BURKE, PATRICIA M. MCCARTHY.

CAROLINE LOURGOS, Kirkland & Ellis LLP, Chicago, IL, Case: 21-2081 Document: 41 Page: 2 Filed: 05/17/2022

2 GROVES v. MCDONOUGH

argued for amici curiae Jason M. Wilcox, Caroline Lourgos. Also represented by JASON M. WILCOX, Washington, DC. ______________________

Before MOORE, Chief Judge, LOURIE and DYK, Circuit Judges. DYK, Circuit Judge. Gene S. Groves appeals from a decision of the United States Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims (“Veterans Court”) affirming a Board of Veterans’ Appeals (“Board”) decision denying Mr. Groves entitlement to Department of Veterans Affairs (“VA”) Vocational Rehabilitation and Em- ployment (“VRE”) benefits. See Groves v. McDonough, 33 Vet. App. 368 (2021) (“Decision”). Because we find that the Veterans Court legally erred in finding that the Board was compelled to grant Mr. Groves an automatic indefinite stay of proceedings, we vacate and remand. BACKGROUND Mr. Groves served in the U.S. Army on active duty from January 1970 to August 1971, including service in Vi- etnam. In October 1990, a VA regional office (“RO”) awarded Mr. Groves benefits for post-traumatic stress dis- order, shell fragment wounds, and a nerve injury. In Au- gust 1998, Mr. Groves sought education benefits through the VA’s VRE program, under Chapter 31, Title 38, of the U.S. Code. 1 A veteran requesting services under Chapter

1 The Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment (subsequently renamed “Veteran Readiness and Employ- ment”) program is intended to “provide for all services and assistance necessary to enable veterans with service-con- nected disabilities to achieve maximum independence in daily living and, to the maximum extent feasible, to become employable and to obtain and maintain suitable employ- ment.” 38 U.S.C. § 3100; 38 C.F.R. §§ 21.1(a), 21.70. Case: 21-2081 Document: 41 Page: 3 Filed: 05/17/2022

GROVES v. MCDONOUGH 3

31 must, among other responsibilities, conform to proce- dures established by the VA governing pursuit of a rehabil- itation plan, including enrollment in a course and cooperation with VA staff in carrying out an initial evalua- tion. See 38 C.F.R. § 21.362(c). Mr. Groves never attended the initial VRE evaluation—due at least in part to the iso- lated nature of his town and his asserted inability to travel—notwithstanding the VA counseling officer’s at- tempts to accommodate Mr. Groves over a period of years. In December 2000, Mr. Groves appeared at a VA Voca- tional Rehabilitation Office and delivered a document to his counselor stating that the “President [had] arranged for [his] Vocational Rehabilitation needs to be taken care of away from the El-Paso VA facility, [such that the counselor could] close his files.” S.A. 40. Mr. Groves informed the rehabilitation counselor