Case ID: f-appx_600/html/0042-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Hattie FERNANDEZ, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Carolyn W. COLVIN, Defendant-Appellee.
    No. 14-1721-cv.
    United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.
    April 21, 2015.
    Hattie Fernandez, Bronx, NY, pro se.
    Peter Aronoff, Benjamin H. Torrance, Assistant United States Attorneys, for Preet Bharara, United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, New York, NY, for Appellee.
    Present: RALPH K. WINTER, JOHN M. WALKER, JR. and REENA RAGGI, Circuit Judges.
   SUMMARY ORDER

UPON DUE CONSIDERATION, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED, ADJUDGED, AND DECREED that the judgment entered on March 26, 2014, is AFFIRMED.

Plaintiff Hattie Fernandez, proceeding pro se, challenges the district court’s affir-mance of the Commissioner of Social Security’s denial of her application for disability benefits. We review the administrative record de novo, but we will set aside the agency decision “only if the factual findings are not supported by substantial evidence or if the decision is based on legal error.” Burgess v. Astne, 537 F.3d 117, 127 (2d Cir.2008) (citation and internal quotation mai'ks omitted). We have defined “substantial evidence” as more than a “mere scintilla,” and as “such relevant evidence as a reasonable mind might accept as adequate to support a conclusion.” Selian v. Astrue, 708 F.3d 409, 417 (2d Cir.2013) (internal quotation marks omitted). Under that standard, “once an [administrative law judge] finds facts, we can reject those facts only if a reasonable fact-finder would have to conclude otherwise.” Brault v. Soc. Sec. Admin., Comm’r, 683 F.3d 443, 448 (2d Cir.2012) (emphasis and internal quotation marks omitted). We assume the parties’ familiarity with the facts and record of prior proceedings, which we reference only as necessary to explain our decision to affirm.

Here, an independent review of the record and relevant case law reveals that the administrative law judge’s decision was legally correct and supported by substantial evidence. We affirm substantially for the reasons stated by the district court in its thorough March 21, 2014 decision.

We have considered all of Fernandez’s arguments and find them to be without merit. Accordingly, we AFFIRM the judgment of the district court.