[DO NOT PUBLISH]

In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Eleventh Circuit

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No. 23-12097

Non-Argument Calendar

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ELVIS BERNARD CHAVERS, SR., 

Plaintiff-Appellant,

versus

COMMISSIONER, SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION, 

Defendant-Appellee.

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Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Southern District of Florida

D.C. Docket No. 9:22-cv-81234-AMC

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2 Opinion of the Court 23-12097

Before JILL PRYOR, BRANCH, and BRASHER, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM:

Elvis Chavers, proceeding pro se, appeals the district court’s 

dismissal of his complaint, which challenged the Social Security Administration’s denial of his application for supplemental security income benefits. He raises two arguments on appeal. First, Chavers 

argues that his complaint was timely because it renewed his timely 

filed complaint from a prior proceeding that was dismissed without 

prejudice. Affording liberal construction to his brief, Chavers contends that the limitations period was subject to equitable tolling 

because: (1) the SSA deliberately concealed evidence; (2) he relied 

on mistaken advice from attorneys; and (3) he was otherwise diligent in challenging the agency’s decision. Second, he argues that 

the district court engaged in misconduct amounting to reversible 

error by recrafting the Commissioner’s arguments in the motion 

to dismiss.

We conclude that Chavers’s complaint was untimely, that 

equitable tolling is unwarranted, and that he abandoned any claim 

for judicial misconduct by failing to properly present it on appeal. 

Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s dismissal of Chavers’s 

complaint.

I.

The SSA denied Elvis Chavers’s application for supplemental security income benefits in 2018. In a letter dated June 11, 

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23-12097 Opinion of the Court 3

2019, the SSA Appeals Council denied his request for review and 

explained that Chavers had 65 days from the date of the letter to 

initiate a civil action challenging the denial of benefits. Prior to the 

instant proceedings, Chavers filed a pro se complaint on August 9, 

2019, seeking judicial review of the agency’s decision. This first 

complaint was dismissed without prejudice on July 29, 2020, and 

Chavers did not appeal.

In the instant proceedings, Chavers filed a subsequent complaint on August 9, 2022, again seeking judicial review of the denial 

of benefits. The district court dismissed the complaint with prejudice because it was not filed within 65 days of the June 19, 2019 

letter and was therefore untimely. Chavers appealed.

II.

“We review de novo the district court’s dismissal of [a] complaint for failure to satisfy the statute of limitations, accepting as 

true the allegations contained in the complaint.” Jackson v. Astrue, 

506 F.3d 1349, 1352 (11th Cir. 2007). We also review de novo

whether equitable tolling applies. Id. “We are, however, bound by 

the trial court’s findings of fact unless they are clearly erroneous.” 

Cabello v. Fernandez-Larios, 402 F.3d 1148, 1153 (11th Cir. 2005).

We liberally construe pro se pleadings and hold them to a less 

stringent standard than pleadings drafted by attorneys. Erickson v. 

Pardus, 551 U.S. 89, 94 (2007).

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4 Opinion of the Court 23-12097

III.

A.

A claimant may seek judicial review of the SSA Commissioner’s final decision to deny disability benefits. See Shows v. Dep’t 

of Health & Hum. Servs., 740 F.2d 891, 891 (11th Cir. 1984). To do 

so, the claimant must file within 65 days of the date on the Appeals 

Council’s letter denying review of the administrative law judge’s

decision. Id. (citing 42 U.S.C. § 405(g), 20 C.F.R. § 422.210).

“As a general rule, the filing of a lawsuit that later is dismissed without prejudice does not automatically toll the statute of 

limitations.” Wright v. Waste Pro USA, Inc., 69 F.4th 1332, 1337 (11th 

Cir. 2023) (cleaned up). Therefore, “when a timely complaint is dismissed without prejudice, a later action that is filed outside the period of limitations is untimely, as it would be if the previous action 

had never existed.” Id.

“[T]he doctrine of equitable tolling is available to a claimant 

whose § 405(g) challenge in the district court was untimely.” Jackson, 506 F.3d at 1353. But “traditional equitable tolling principles” 

apply and “require that the claimant demonstrate extraordinary circumstances, such as fraud, misinformation, or deliberate concealment.” Id. at 1355. Equitable tolling is an extraordinary remedy that 

we apply only sparingly. Wright, 69 F.4th at 1340. A party is generally “bound by the negligence of his counsel” such that equitable 

tolling is not warranted due to an attorney’s mistake. Clemons v. 

Comm’r, Ala. Dep’t of Corr., 967 F.3d 1231, 1242 (11th Cir. 2020). 

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Similarly, an appellant’s “ignorance of the law does not, on its own, 

satisfy the constricted extraordinary circumstances test.” Jackson, 

506 F.3d at 1356 (quotation marks omitted).

The district court did not err in dismissing the instant complaint as untimely. When Chavers’s complaint was dismissed without prejudice in a prior proceeding, the limitations period for 

Chavers to challenge the agency’s decision was not automatically 

tolled. See Wright, 69 F.4th at 1337. In ruling on the Commissioner’s 

motion to dismiss, the district court properly considered the timeliness of the subsequent complaint as “if the previous action had 

never existed.” Id.

We also conclude that Chavers’s circumstances are not so 

extraordinary as to warrant equitable tolling. Reliance on mistaken 

advice from counsel and ignorance of the law do not constitute extraordinary circumstances. Clemons, 967 F.3d at 1242; Jackson, 506 

F.3d at 1356. And the district court did not err in finding that 

Chavers’s allegations of the SSA’s deliberate concealment were unsupported. Accordingly, we reject Chavers’s timeliness arguments.

B.

Issues not properly presented on appeal are deemed forfeited and will not be addressed absent extraordinary circumstances. United States v. Campbell, 26 F.4th 860 (11th Cir.), cert. denied, 143 S. Ct. 95, 214 L. Ed. 2d 19 (2022); see also Timson v. 

Sampson, 518 F.3d 870, 874 (11th Cir. 2008) (applying the same rule 

to pro se litigants). An appellant “fails to adequately brief a claim 

when he does not plainly and prominently raise it,” or by making

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only passing references to it outside of the brief’s argument section.

Sapuppo v. Allstate Floridian Ins. Co., 739 F.3d 678, 681–82 (11th Cir. 

2014) (quotation marks omitted).

Chavers abandoned the issue of judicial misconduct because 

he discusses it only in a perfunctory manner outside of the argument section of his brief, thereby failing to properly raise the issue.

Because he has abandoned the issue, we affirm the district court’s 

grant of the Commissioner’s motion to dismiss.

IV.

AFFIRMED.

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