[DO NOT PUBLISH]

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT

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No. 14-15698

Non-Argument Calendar

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D.C. Docket No. 4:12-cv-01625-WMA

LYNN GORDON, 

 Plaintiff-Appellant,

 versus

SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION, COMMISSIONER,

 Defendant-Appellee.

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Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Northern District of Alabama

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(September 16, 2015)

Before HULL, JULIE CARNES and JILL PRYOR, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM: 

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Lynn Gordon appeals the district court’s denial of her post-judgment motion 

to remand her case to the Social Security Administration (“SSA”) pursuant to 

sentence six of 42 U.S.C. § 405(g). After careful review of the record and the 

briefs, we affirm.

I.

Ms. Gordon submitted an application for disability insurance benefits and 

supplemental security income, alleging that she suffered from trichotillomania,1

depression, anxiety, chronic shingles pain, and obsessive compulsive disorder, as 

well as problems with tolerating clothing. The Commissioner denied her claim. 

She requested and was granted a hearing before an ALJ. The ALJ issued a 

decision on November 6, 2009 and, after considering all the evidence, found that 

Ms. Gordon had not been under a disability within the meaning of the Social 

Security Act from April 2, 2007 through the date of the decision. Ms. Gordon 

appealed to the Appeals Council, which denied review of the ALJ’s decision.

Ms. Gordon then filed for judicial review of the Commissioner’s decision in 

the district court. The district court affirmed the SSA’s final decision, explaining 

that the ALJ’s decision applied proper legal standards and was supported by 

substantial evidence. Ms. Gordon then filed a motion to remand the case to the 

 1

Trichotillomania is characterized by recurrent body-focused repetitive behavior, such as 

hair pulling, and is a type of impulsive control disorder. American Psychiatric Association, 

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 251-54 (5th ed. 2013).

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SSA pursuant to sentence six of 42 U.S.C. § 405(g). She argued that a remand was 

appropriate based on material new evidence—namely, a fully favorable decision 

by an ALJ on a subsequent disability claim she filed. The favorable decision was 

dated June 26, 2012, and it awarded benefits with an onset date of November 17, 

2009. Ms. Gordon noted that the onset date in this decision was only 11 days after 

the denial of benefits on November 6, 2009, at issue here. She argued that this 

subsequent favorable decision was material, relevant, and probative evidence 

supporting her claims because the later favorable decision was “in sharp contrast” 

to the earlier denial, creating a reasonable possibility that this new evidence would 

change the administrative result. The district court denied the motion, which it 

construed as a Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 59(e) motion to alter or amend 

judgment, because Ms. Gordon had failed to present new evidence or point out a 

manifest error of law or fact.

II.

We review the district court’s denial of a motion to alter or amend a 

judgment pursuant to Rule 59 for abuse of discretion. Arthur v. King, 500 F.3d 

1335, 1343 (11th Cir. 2007). The only grounds for granting a Rule 59(e) motion 

are newly-discovered evidence or manifest errors of law or fact. Id. at 1343. A 

Rule 59(e) motion cannot be used to relitigate old matters or present evidence that 

could have been raised prior to the entry of judgment. Jacobs v. Tempur-Pedic 

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Int’l, Inc., 626 F.3d 1327, 1344 (11th Cir. 2010). “[W]here a party attempts to 

introduce previously unsubmitted evidence on a motion to reconsider, the court 

should not grant the motion absent some showing that the evidence was not 

available during the pending of the motion.” May v. U.S. Postal Serv., 122 F.3d 

43, 46 (11th Cir. 1997).

In her motion to the district court, Ms. Gordon sought remand based on 

sentence six of 42 U.S.C. § 405(g), which provides that:

[t]he court . . . 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; and the Commissioner of Social Security shall, after 

the case is remanded, and after hearing such additional evidence if so 

ordered, modify or affirm the Commissioner’s findings of fact or the 

Commissioner’s decision, or both, and shall file with the court any 

such additional and modified findings of fact and decision . . . .

42 U.S.C. § 405(g). Sentence six “provides the sole means for a district court to 

remand to the Commissioner to consider new evidence presented for the first time 

in the district court.” Ingram v. Comm’r Soc. Sec. Admin., 496 F.3d 1253, 1267 

(11th Cir. 2007). To be entitled to remand to the SSA, the claimant must show that 

(1) new, non-cumulative evidence exists, (2) the evidence is material such that a 

reasonable possibility exists that the new evidence would change the 

administrative result, and (3) good cause exists for claimant’s failure to submit the 

evidence at the appropriate administrative level. Caulder v. Bowen, 791 F.2d 872, 

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877 (11th Cir. 1986). Accordingly, sentence six encompasses only those instances 

in which “the district court learns of evidence not in existence or available to the 

claimant at the time of the administrative proceeding that might have changed the 

outcome of that proceeding.” Ingram, 496 F.3d at 1267 (quoting Sullivan v. 

Finkelstein, 496 U.S. 617, 626 (1990)). Evidence that was presented to the 

Appeals Council cannot be the basis for a sentence six remand. Id. at 1269. 

The district court appropriately construed Ms. Gordon’s motion for remand 

as a Rule 59(e) motion because it was filed within 28 days of the district court’s 

decision affirming the SSA’s decision and requested that the district court remand 

on the basis of new evidence, which necessarily requires altering the court’s 

judgment. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 59(e). The district court also did not abuse its 

discretion by denying the motion. First, Ms. Gordon failed to show that the motion 

was based on new evidence: her request for a remand was based on a decision 

entered two years prior to the district court’s judgment, and she provided no reason 

why she could not have filed her motion before the district court entered judgment. 

See Arthur, 500 F.3d at 1343. 

Second, Ms. Gordon failed to show that the district court’s affirmance of the 

SSA’s decision was a manifest error of law or fact because the request for remand 

and the alleged new evidence were not before the court when it ruled, and, in any 

event, a sentence six remand was inappropriate. Id. Although the subsequent 

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favorable SSA decision was new, non-cumulative evidence, and Ms. Gordon could 

not have presented it at the administrative level (because it was not in existence 

until after the Appeals Council denied review), the evidence was immaterial

because no reasonable possibility existed of a different administrative result. See 

Caulder, 791 F.2d at 877. The favorable decision, standing alone, does not 

indicate a reasonable possibility of a different result. Evidence is irrelevant and 

immaterial when it relates to a time period after the eligibility determination at 

issue. See Wilson v. Apfel, 179 F.3d 1276, 1278-79 (11th Cir. 1999). The initial 

denial of benefits covered the time period April 2, 2007 to November 6, 2009, 

while the subsequent favorable decision covered November 17, 2009 until June 26, 

2012. Thus, under Apfel, the subsequent benefits determination was immaterial

and did not justify a sentence six remand.

Ms. Gordon argues that the temporal proximity of the onset date in the 

favorable decision to the date of the denial of benefits at issue in this case renders

the subsequent decision material. We disagree. Even though the subsequent 

favorable decision relied on some evidence prior to 2010, the ALJ also relied on 

medical records from 2010 and later that were significantly different than the early 

records considered in both cases.

Ms. Gordon also argues that the SSA’s Hearings, Appeals and Litigation 

Law Manual, called HALLEX, provides guidance as to the need to remand the 

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case to consider the denial in light of the new favorable decision. Ms. Gordon 

failed to raise this issue before the district court, however, and we therefore need 

not consider it. See Access Now, Inc., 385 F.3d at 1331. But we note that the rules 

found in HALLEX are inapplicable to a sentence six remand because they apply 

specifically to the situation where a claimant presents a subsequent favorable 

decision while her case is before the Appeals Council, not the district court. See

HALLEX § I-4-2-101(I)(A).

IV.

Accordingly, the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying Ms. 

Gordon’s motion requesting remand.

AFFIRMED.

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