Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-09-05192/USCOURTS-caDC-09-05192-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 864
Nature of Suit: Social Security - SSID Title XVI
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued May 12, 2011 Decided July 8, 2011

No. 09-5192

KEVIN M. JONES,

APPELLANT

v.

MICHAEL J. ASTRUE, COMMISSIONER OF SOCIAL SECURITY,

APPELLEE

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 1:08-cv-00852)

Micah W.J. Smith, appointed by the court, argued the 

cause as amicus curiae in support of appellant. With him on 

the briefs was Matthew M. Shors.

R. Craig Lawrence, Assistant U.S. Attorney, argued the 

cause for appellee. With him on the brief were Ronald C. 

Machen Jr., U.S. Attorney, and Frederick E. Haynes and 

Harry B. Roback, Assistant U.S. Attorneys.

Before: SENTELLE, Chief Judge, GINSBURG and 

GARLAND, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge GINSBURG.

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GINSBURG, Circuit Judge: When the Commissioner of 

the Social Security Administration (SSA) denied his 

application for disability benefits, Kevin Jones filed suit in the 

district court. Recognizing the deficiency in the 

administrative record, the SSA asked the court to remand the 

case so the agency could supplement the record, and the court 

obliged. Jones now argues pro se that the district court had no 

authority to permit additional evidence to be taken on remand. 

Although Jones has a point, we vacate the district court’s 

judgment for a different reason, raised by the amicus curiae:

The district court misapprehended the extent of its remedial 

power. 

I. Background

Because we have no occasion to wade into the merits of 

Jones’s claim to disability benefits, we can be brief in setting 

forth the facts relevant to this case: In 1995 Jones suffered an 

injury leaving him unable to continue working for the City of 

Baltimore as an electrician. After trying unsuccessfully to do 

other types of work, Jones filed a claim with the SSA for 

disability benefits. An Administrative Law Judge denied the 

claim; he found Jones had made a prima facie case of 

disability but could perform “other work” and therefore was 

not entitled to benefits. In reaching that conclusion, the ALJ 

relied exclusively upon a standardized set of guidelines 

developed by the SSA to determine the types of work an 

individual with a given set of infirmities generally can 

perform.

Regulations promulgated by the Commissioner of the 

SSA make clear, however, that exclusive reliance upon those 

guidelines is inappropriate where, as here, the claimant’s 

impairment is due in part to pain. See 20 C.F.R. § 

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416.969a(c). The agency realized this problem only after the 

ALJ’s decision had become final, the SSA had answered 

Jones’s complaint in the district court, and Jones had filed a 

motion for summary judgment. Rather than respond to that 

motion, the SSA moved for entry of “a judgment that reverses 

the final decision of [the SSA] and that remands the cause ... 

for further administrative proceedings.” The SSA proposed to 

do three things on remand: (1) “Hold a new hearing to obtain 

supplemental vocational expert evidence”; (2) Assess that 

expert testimony along with the relevant guidelines; and (3) 

“Issue a new decision.”

Three days later, without waiting to hear from Jones, the 

district court entered an order reversing the final decision of 

the SSA and remanding the case to the agency “for further 

administrative proceedings”; doing so, the court volunteered,

“would not prejudice” Jones. Jones filed a motion for 

reconsideration, which the district court denied on the ground 

Jones had “already obtained the maximum relief — reversal 

and remand — that the Court is authorized to award.” Jones 

appealed pro se and this court appointed an amicus curiae to 

present arguments in support of his cause.

II. Analysis

This appeal turns upon a vexing provision of the Social 

Security Act, 42 U.S.C. § 405(g), concerning judicial review 

of a final decision by the Commissioner. Sentences four and 

six of that section provide, in relevant part:

[4] The court shall have power to enter, upon 

the pleadings and transcript of the record, a 

judgment affirming, modifying, or reversing 

the decision of the Commissioner of Social 

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Security, with or without remanding the cause 

for a rehearing.

...

[6] The court may, on motion of the 

Commissioner of Social Security made for 

good cause shown before the Commissioner 

files the Commissioner's answer, remand the 

case to the Commissioner of Social Security 

for further action by the Commissioner of 

Social Security, and it may at any time order 

additional evidence to be taken before the 

Commissioner of Social Security, but only 

upon a showing that there is new evidence 

which is material and that there is good cause 

for the failure to incorporate such evidence 

into the record in a prior proceeding ... .

In this case the Commissioner sought a remand expressly 

pursuant to sentence four, and the district court seems to have 

relied upon that sentence in remanding the case. Although the 

court cited § 405(g) only as a whole, there is no indication it

held the Commissioner to the good cause requirement in 

sentence six; indeed, the court’s only stated rationale for 

granting the motion was that doing so “would not prejudice” 

Jones. More important, the Commissioner made no attempt 

to and could not have satisfied the conditions in sentence six; 

his motion to remand came after he had filed an answer, and 

an ALJ’s misunderstanding of clear agency regulations can 

hardly be thought to give the Commissioner good cause not to 

compile an appropriate record after the claimant has made his 

prima facie case. Clearly, if the district court had authority to 

remand the case, that authority had to be found in sentence 

four. See Melkonyan v. Sullivan, 501 U.S. 89, 99–100 (1991) 

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(“sentences four and six set forth the only kinds of remands 

that are permitted under § 405(g)”).

The amicus argues sentence four does not authorize a 

district court to order a remand solely so the Commissioner 

may supplement the record. The premise of this argument is 

that the term “rehearing” in sentence four connotes a second 

trip through the same evidence. The meaning of “rehearing” 

is not so clearly limited, however; in fact, the leading legal

dictionaries are in conflict on just this point. Compare 

BALLENTINE’S LAW DICTIONARY 1081 (3d ed. 1969) (“a new 

consideration of the case ... upon the pleadings and 

depositions already in the case”), with MERRIAM-WEBSTER’S 

DICTIONARY OF LAW (1996), available at

http://dictionary.findlaw.com/definition/rehearing.html

(rehearing “may encompass new matters (as evidence or 

issues)”), and with BLACK’S LAW DICTIONARY 1339 (9th ed. 

2009) (silent as to the scope of the record on rehearing). The 

Congress’s use of the word “rehearing” therefore does not, by 

itself, signify whether the SSA may take additional evidence 

on remand. 

The amicus attempts to resolve this ambiguity by 

reference to other sections of the statute but his arguments on 

that score are no more conclusive. He first points to the 

phrase “evidentiary hearing” in § 405(b)(2), which concerns 

the SSA’s “reconsideration” of certain disability 

determinations, and argues use of the adjective there 

“confirms Congress’s awareness that a rehearing or 

reconsideration ordinarily is not [an] evidentiary proceeding.” 

That “evidentiary” is used in § 405(b)(2) to modify “hearing” 

rather than “rehearing” undermines the relevance of this 

point. The amicus’s next offering — that the phrase “upon 

the pleadings and transcript of the record” in sentence four 

describes not only the basis for the district court’s judgment 

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but also the scope of the “rehearing” it may order — is, to put 

it mildly, not the only reasonable reading of sentence four.

Having peeled away the amicus’s textual contentions, we 

reach the structural argument at the core of his case: 

If sentence four were construed as authorizing 

remands for the taking of additional evidence, 

then it would allow the Commissioner to 

obtain through sentence four what he could not 

obtain through sentence six. That, in turn, 

would undermine the effectiveness of the 

restrictions Congress placed on sentence six. 

This reading would, in other words marshaled by the amicus, 

render the restrictions in sentence six superfluous, see Corley 

v. United States, 129 S. Ct. 1558, 1566–67 (2009), make the 

statute self-defeating, see Citizens Bank of Md. v. Strumpf, 

516 U.S. 16, 20 (1995), fail to “harmonize” the two sentences, 

District of Columbia v. Bailey, 18 F.2d 367, 368 (D.C. Cir. 

1927), and perversely give precedence to the general terms of 

sentence four over the specific terms of sentence six, see 

HCSC-Laundry v. United States, 450 U.S. 1, 6 (1981). The 

only way to avoid these pitfalls, he contends, is to hold 

“sentence four allows for remands so that the Commissioner 

can reconsider or clarify decisions based on the existing 

record, whereas sentence six allows for reopening and 

supplementation of the record.”

The Commissioner, of course, urges a reading of 

sentence four that permits supplementing the record on 

remand;*

 * We are not persuaded by the Commissioner’s argument for 

deference to his interpretation of the statute, pursuant to Chevron 

he responds to the amicus’s analysis by highlighting 

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the procedural distinction between sentences four and six. As 

this court has explained, “in a sentence-four remand, the 

district court disposes of the action by a final judgment and 

relinquishes jurisdiction, whereas in a sentence-six remand, 

the district court retains jurisdiction over the action pending 

further development by the agency.” Krishnan v. Barnhart, 

328 F.3d 685, 691 (D.C. Cir. 2003); see also Melkonyan, 501 

U.S. at 101–02 (“remand orders must either accompany a 

final judgment affirming, modifying, or reversing the 

administrative decision in accordance with sentence four, or 

conform with the requirements outlined by Congress in 

sentence six”). The significance of this observation for the 

task at hand is not obvious. Although the district court did

reverse the Commissioner’s decision and remand the matter 

“for further administrative proceedings,” that does not allay 

our concern that the court sidestepped the limitations in 

sentence six.

To the contrary, the amicus has advanced a reading of the 

statute that avoids these structural problems: A remand for the 

taking of additional evidence must satisfy the requirements in 

sentence six. The restrictions in that sentence are there for a 

reason, namely “to limit the power of district courts to order 

remands for ‘new evidence’ in Social Security cases.” 

Melkonyan, 501 U.S. at 100. The amicus’s reading would not

permit the court, by invoking sentence four, to evade these 

restrictions on its power. 

 

U.S.A. Inc. v. NRDC, 467 U.S. 837 (1984). Deference is 

unwarranted because sentence four is not a provision administered 

by the Commissioner; rather, it addresses the power of the district 

court. See Adams Fruit Co. v. Barrett, 494 U.S. 638, 649-50 (1990) 

(delegation to Department of Labor to set substantive standards for 

implementing statute “does not empower the Secretary to regulate 

the scope of the judicial power vested by the statute”).

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Neither the Supreme Court nor this has decided whether 

the proceeding contemplated by a remand under sentence four 

may include the taking of additional evidence, that is, where 

the requirements of sentence six are not met.

*

 We 

nonetheless note the weight of authority, albeit not 

controlling, lies against the amicus’s reading of the statute. 

Three other circuits have come down in the Commissioner’s 

favor, holding sentence four does permit a district court to 

remand a case to the Commissioner to take additional 

evidence. See Butts v. Barnhart, 388 F.3d 377, 385–86 (2d 

Cir. 2004); Seavey v. Barnhart, 276 F.3d 1, 12–13 (1st Cir. 

2001); Rosa v. Callahan, 168 F.3d 72, 83 & n.8 (2d Cir. 

1999); Faucher v. HHS, 17 F.3d 171, 174–75 (6th Cir. 1994). 

Those cases rest upon either the procedural distinction 

between sentences four and six, see Seavey, 276 F.3d at 12–

13; Faucher, 17 F.3d at 174–75, or a quest for the additional 

accuracy to be gained by supplementing the record, see Butts, 

388 F.3d at 385–86; Rosa, 168 F.2d at 83. We find neither 

rationale satisfactory, the former for the reason already stated

and the latter because it ignores other considerations, such as 

finality and efficiency, the Congress might have valued in 

drafting the statute. Still, the holdings of our sister circuits do 

give us pause. 

 * The Commissioner points us to a series of decisions in which he 

claims we have remanded a case to him under sentence four with 

instructions to supplement the record. See Simms v. Sullivan, 877 

F.2d 1047, 1053 (1989); Poulin v. Bowen, 817 F.2d 865, 876 

(1987); Narrol v. Heckler, 727 F.2d 1303, 1307 (1984); Diabo v. 

Sec’y of Health, Educ. & Welfare, 627 F.2d 278, 281, 283 (1980). 

Because we did not in those cases resolve any issue concerning the 

power granted the district court by § 405(g), they neither help nor 

bind us in the present inquiry. Cf. Steel Co. v. Citizens for a Better 

Env’t, 523 U.S. 83, 91 (1998) (“drive-by jurisdictional rulings ... 

have no precedential effect”). 

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Sullivan v. Finkelstein, 496 U.S. 617, 619–24 (1990), is 

also cause for hesitation. In that case the Commissioner had 

denied a widow disability benefits, the district court had 

reversed that ruling and remanded the case for further 

findings of fact, and the Third Circuit had dismissed the 

Commissioner’s appeal on the ground the remand order was 

not appealable. 496 U.S. at 621–22. The Supreme Court 

reversed, holding the remand order was appealable because 

the district court had entered a judgment, as contemplated by 

sentence four. Id. at 623–26. In so doing, the Court rejected 

the claimant’s argument that the district court had necessarily

ordered a remand under sentence six because it had stated in 

the order “the evidence on the record was insufficient to 

support the Secretary's conclusion and ... further factfinding 

regarding respondent’s ailment was necessary.” Id. at 626. 

Therefore, as the Commissioner argues here, the Court seems 

“tacitly [to have] recognized that a sentence four remand may 

involve the introduction of additional evidence on rehearing.” 

To similar effect, in Shalala v. Schaefer, 509 U.S. 292, 299 

(1993), the Court expressly described as coming under 

sentence four a remand in an earlier case, Sullivan v. Hudson, 

490 U.S. 877 (1989), that had called for reopening the record. 

Happily, in the end we need not choose between these 

precedents and the amicus’s reading of the statute, for wisely 

he has also proposed an alternative course of action: He 

argues the district court’s judgment should be vacated 

because, in failing to recognize it could have remanded the 

case with an order to pay Jones benefits, rather than to rehear 

the matter, the court misapprehended the extent of its power. 

That is, the district court denied Jones’s motion for 

reconsideration in the mistaken belief Jones had “already 

obtained the maximum relief — reversal and remand — that 

the Court is authorized to award.” 

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Under our caselaw, when a claimant makes out his prima 

facie case and the agency fails to carry its burden of showing

the claimant could perform “other work,” the district court 

may remand the case to the Commissioner with instructions to 

award the claimant benefits. See Meneses v. Sec’y of Health, 

Educ. & Welfare, 442 F.2d 803, 809 (1971); cf. Krishnan, 328 

F.3d at 696 (inappropriate for court to award benefits where 

claimant could not show prima facie case). Here, of course, it 

is undisputed Jones made out a prima facie case and that, on 

the extant administrative record, the Commissioner could not 

meet his burden of proof. The district court therefore could

have, if warranted by the record, afforded Jones additional 

relief.

The Commissioner defends the district court’s contrary

conclusion on the ground that “the record in its current state 

does not show that Jones is clearly entitled to Social Security 

benefits.” See Faucher, 17 F.3d at 176 (court cannot award 

disability benefits unless the record demonstrates claimant’s 

“clear entitlement” to them). Although the Commissioner

may be correct, the sufficiency of the record evidence is for 

the district court to determine in the first instance. In this 

case, however, the district court instead rested upon its 

antecedent but mistaken belief that, even if Jones was right on 

the merits, a remand for rehearing was the most the court 

could order. We therefore vacate the judgment and remand

this matter for the district court to determine the appropriate 

remedy in the light of the full extent of its power under circuit 

law.

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III. Conclusion

Because the district court misunderstood the full reach of 

its remedial authority, we vacate the judgment and remand 

this matter to the district court to consider the issue anew.

So ordered.

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