Short answer. Yes, through a petition for mandamus under Rule 65. When a tribunal, board, officer or person unlawfully neglects an act which the law specifically enjoins as a duty, and there is no other plain, speedy and adequate remedy, the aggrieved person may ask the proper court to command performance and award damages.
What the law says
unlawfully neglects the performance of an act which the law specifically enjoins as a duty resulting from an office, trust, or station
Rule 65, Section 3 — Petition for mandamus. Read the full provision →
What the law says
there is no other plain, speedy and adequate remedy in the ordinary course of law
Rule 65, Section 3 — Petition for mandamus. Read the full provision →
What mandamus reaches
Rule 65, Section 3 gives the remedy its shape. It lies when any tribunal, corporation, board, officer or person unlawfully neglects the performance of an act which the law specifically enjoins as a duty resulting from an office, trust, or station, or unlawfully excludes another from the use and enjoyment of a right or office to which that person is entitled. The first branch covers the office that will not act — the permit unsigned, the certification unissued, the payment unreleased — where a law commands the act. The second covers being shut out of a right or office one is entitled to hold or exercise.
The duty must be specifically enjoined
The phrase doing the heaviest work is which the law specifically enjoins as a duty. Mandamus compels performance of what the law itself commands; it is not a tool for overriding how an office weighs, evaluates, or decides matters the law leaves to its judgment. Before filing, the first question is always: which statute, ordinance, or regulation, in which provision, obliges this office to do this act? If you can point to the text of a command, the case has a spine. If the office merely decided against you in a matter it was empowered to decide, the remedy lies elsewhere.
No other adequate remedy first
The section also requires that there is no other plain, speedy and adequate remedy in the ordinary course of law. Courts expect the ordinary routes to be used before the extraordinary one: a clear written demand to the office, the appeals or reviews its own rules provide, recourse to its superiors where that is available. These steps are not wasted time — they build the record. The demand and the refusal, or the silence that followed, become the proof that the neglect is real and that nothing short of a court's command will produce the act.
What the petition asks for
The vehicle is a verified petition filed in the proper court, alleging the facts with certainty and praying for judgment commanding the respondent, immediately or at some other time to be specified by the court, to do the act required to be done, together with the damages sustained by the petitioner by reason of the wrongful acts of the respondent. It must carry a sworn certification of non-forum shopping. In practice that means assembling, before filing: the legal provision imposing the duty, proof of your entitlement, the written demand, and the refusal or inaction — the four documents on which the petition stands.