Case ID: f-appx_403/html/0228-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
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Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Jennifer WALTER, Administrator of the ESTATE OF Janet H. GARFIELD, Plaintiff—Appellant, v. Michael J. ASTRUE, Commissioner of Social Security Administration, Defendant—Appellee.
    No. 09-15664.
    United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.
    
      Submitted Nov. 4, 2010.
    
    Filed Nov. 12, 2010.
    Ian Michael Sammis, Esquire, Ian M. Sammis, Esq., San Rafael, CA, for Plaintiff-Appellant.
    Donna Wade Anderson, Social Security Administration Office of the General Counsel, San Francisco, CA, for DefendantAppellee.
    Before: THOMAS and IKUTA, Circuit Judges, and SETTLE, District Judge.
    
    
      
       The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision without oral argument. See Fed. R.App. P. 34(a)(2).
    
    
      
       The Honorable Benjamin Hale Settle, United States District Judge for the Western District of Washington, sitting by designation.
    
   MEMORANDUM

We affirm the district court’s grant of summary judgment to the Commissioner. Jennifer Walter has presented no evidence of claimant Janet Garfield’s mental incapacity during the sixty-day period following the Appeals Council’s 1997 decision, see 42 U.S.C. § 405(g); Social Security Ruling (SSR) 91-5p, 1991 WL 208067, at * 1, and has shown neither a nexus between the Commissioner’s alleged fraudulent concealment and her inability to file suit in a timely manner, as is required for equitable estoppel, nor an inability to obtain vital information bearing on the existence of her claim during the tolling period, as is required for equitable tolling, see Huseman v. Icicle Seafoods, 471 F.3d 1116, 1120-21 (9th Cir.2006). We also affirm the district court’s decision not to exercise its mandamus jurisdiction over Walter’s complaint because the Commissioner has no “clear nondiseretionary duty” to reopen lapsed claims, Johnson v. Shalala, 2 F.3d 918, 924 (9th Cir.1993) (internal quotation mark omitted) (quoting Briggs v. Sullivan, 886 F.2d 1132, 1142 (9th Cir.1989)). Walter’s argument that the Special Disability Workload (SDW) process created a “clear nondiseretionary duty” for the Commissioner to reopen Garfield’s claim fails because Garfield was never eligible for the SDW.

AFFIRMED. 
      
       This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by 9th Cir. R. 36-3.