Charity Mainville v. United States District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina

Mandamus is a "drastic and extraordinary" remedy available only when there is no other adequate means of relief, the right to the writ is clear and indisputable, and issuance is appropriate to confine a lower court to its lawful authority or compel it to act. Cheney v. U.S. District Court, 542 U.S. 367 (2004). The Fourth Circuit denied relief on "undue delay" and "substitute for appeal" grounds, denied rehearing, and then refused to correct when petitioner moved to correct the opinion under 28 U.S.C. § 2106, invoking a local rule instead. This Court’s mandamus standard says nothing about ‘delay’, yet the Fourth Circuit treats delay as a stand-alone requirement. The Fourth Circuit’s denials are nearly all unpublished boilerplate opinions with no analysis of whether any adequate alternative remedy exists or what constitutes undue delay. These categorical rules have been applied in more than 1,100 Fourth Circuit cases compared to approximately 111 in all other circuits since 2000. The questions presented are:

1. Whether the Fourth Circuit may impose "undue delay" as a standalone prerequisite to mandamus refief when this Court's three-part test includes no such requirement.

2. Whether the Fourth Circuit may categorically deny mandamus as a "substitute for appeal" without analyzing whether any appeal is available.