Summary
The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s decision upholding the denial of Supplemental Security Income benefits and declining to reconsider certain medical-opinion evaluations after a partial remand. The court held that the law-of-the-case doctrine applies in Social Security cases, while clarifying that an applicant’s failure to raise available issues in an earlier appeal may forfeit review of those issues.
Topics
Practice areas
Questions Presented
- Whether the law-of-the-case doctrine applies when a Social Security case returns to the district court after a remand for further administrative proceedings.
- Whether the district court abused its discretion by refusing to reconsider its pre-remand evaluation of Dr. Drazkowski’s and LPC Galler’s opinions.
- Whether a Social Security claimant who appeals a partial remand must raise all available challenges to preserve them for a later appeal.
- Whether the Ninth Circuit remains able to review district-court determinations made before and after remand when the case had not previously been before the Ninth Circuit on those issues.
Holdings
- The law-of-the-case doctrine applies in the Social Security context, even when a district court enters a final appealable judgment accompanied by a remand order and later considers the case after administrative proceedings.
- The district court did not abuse its discretion by refusing to revisit its pre-remand conclusions concerning Dr. Drazkowski’s and LPC Galler’s opinions because those issues had been settled and were outside the scope of the remand proceedings.
- A Social Security claimant who immediately appeals a partial remand must raise all available challenges in that appeal or forfeit the ability to raise those challenges in a later appeal to the Ninth Circuit.
- A claimant may proceed on remand rather than immediately appeal, and that choice does not foreclose later Ninth Circuit review of district-court determinations made before or after remand, provided the issues are properly preserved.
Key quotations
“Those values are equally promoted in social-security cases, notwithstanding formalistic notions of whether the same “case” returns to the district court following remand.” (at 837)
“A social-security applicant who is granted a partial remand by the district court has two options to preserve her right to appeal that decision.” (at 838)
“That choice will not foreclose later review by this court of any district court determination, whether made before or after the remand.” (at 838)
Factual background
Fallon had a history of epileptic seizures and underwent an anterior temporal lobectomy and removal of part of her inferior frontal cortex as a teenager. Her SSI application relied on seizures as well as cognitive, behavioral, developmental, and psychological limitations. Dr. Joseph Drazkowski assessed moderate-to-severe cognitive limitations, and LPC Terry Galler addressed limitations associated with post-traumatic stress disorder and generalized anxiety disorder.
Procedural history
An ALJ denied Fallon’s SSI application. The district court reversed in part and remanded for further proceedings, holding that the ALJ properly evaluated the opinions of Dr. Drazkowski and LPC Galler but erred in evaluating other witnesses. The Ninth Circuit affirmed the remand order in an earlier unpublished appeal. On remand, the ALJ again found Fallon not disabled and incorporated the prior evaluations by reference; the district court affirmed and refused under the law-of-the-case doctrine to reconsider the previously settled medical-opinion issues. The Ninth Circuit affirmed.