Source: http://supreme.nolo.com/us/496/617/case.html
Timestamp: 2019-08-24 00:18:11
Document Index: 131934151

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 405', '§ 423', '§ 405', '§ 1291', '§ 405', '§ 1291', '§ 205', '§ 406', '§ 405', '§ 405', '§ 405', '§ 405', '§ 405', '§ 1291', '§ 1291', '§ 1291', '§ 1291', '§ 405', '§ 2412', '§ 1291', '§ 2412']

SULLIVAN V. FINKELSTEIN, 496 U. S. 617 - Volume 496 - 1990 - Full Text - US Supreme Court Center - USSC Cases - Nolo
US Supreme Court Center > Volume 496 > SULLIVAN V. FINKELSTEIN, 496 U. S. 617 (1990) > Full Text
Title 42 U.S.C. § 405(g), which is not further divided into subsections, provides, inter alia, that: an individual may obtain judicial review of a final decision of the Secretary of Health and Human Services under the Social Security Act by filing "a civil action" in the district court (sentence one); in such action, that court has the power to enter "a judgment affirming, modifying, or reversing the [Secretary's] decision, with or without remanding the cause for a rehearing" (sentence four) (emphasis added); that court may order a remand for the taking of additional evidence, "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" (sentence six); that court may review the Secretary's post-remand "additional or modified findings of fact and decision" (sentence seven); and that court's judgment "shall be final except that it shall be subject to review in the same manner as a judgment in other civil actions" (sentence eight). Respondent filed an application for widow's disability benefits under § 423(d)(2)(B), which authorizes an award to a widow whose impairment is of a level of severity deemed sufficient by the Secretary's regulations to preclude an individual from engaging in any gainful activity. Under those regulations, a surviving spouse who suffers from an impairment meeting or equaling the severity of an impairment included in the Secretary's Listing of Impairments is disabled. After respondent's application was denied on the ground that her heart condition did not meet or equal a listed impairment, she filed suit in the District Court, invoking § 405(g). The court sustained the Secretary's conclusion that she did not meet the regulatory definition for disability, but reversed the decision and remanded the case for a determination of her ability to engage in any gainful activity without regard to the regulation. The Court of Appeals dismissed the Secretary's appeal for lack of jurisdiction, because remands to administrative agencies are not ordinarily "final decisions" appealable under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. It held that the exception for cases in which an important legal issue is finally resolved and review of that issue would be foreclosed as a practical matter if an immediate appeal were unavailable was inapplicable because, if the Secretary persisted in refusing benefits on
(c) Respondent's several arguments countering this construction of § 405(g) are unpersuasive. First, the remand in this case was not ordered pursuant to the sixth sentence, since a sixth-sentence remand is appropriate only when 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 that proceeding's outcome. Second, the post-remand judicial review contemplated by sentence seven refers only to reviews in cases that were previously remanded under sentence six, and thus does not fit the kind of remand ordered in this case. Third, the eighth sentence does in fact compel the conclusion that a fourth-sentence judgment is immediately appealable. That Congress may have used "final" to mean conclusively decided for res judicata purposes does not preclude the construction of "final" to include "appealable," a meaning with which "final" is usually coupled. Moreover, Congress is empowered to define a class of orders that are "final judgments" within the meaning of § 1291, and that is precisely what it has done in sentence four. Fourth, sentence four does not limit a district court's power to remand a case, since it does not require the court to choose between entering a
WHITE, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which REHNQUIST, C.J., and BRENNAN, MARSHALL, STEVENS, O'CONNOR, and KENNEDY, JJ., joined, and in which SCALIA, J., joined except as to n. 8. SCALIA, J., filed an opinion concurring in part, post, p. 496 U. S. 631. BLACKMUN, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment, post, p. 496 U. S. 632.
Respondent Finkelstein is the widow of a wage earner who died in 1980 while fully insured under Title II of the Social
The Secretary's practice for spouses' disability insurance benefits thus differs significantly from the regulations for determining whether a wage earner is entitled to disability insurance benefits. For wage earners, the Secretary has established a "five-step sequential evaluation process for determining whether a person is disabled." Bowen v. Yuckert, 482 U. S. 137, 482 U. S. 140 (1987). Under that five-step process, even if a wage earner's impairment does not meet or equal one of the listed impairments, the wage earner may nonetheless be entitled to disability insurance benefits if the Secretary determines that his "impairment in fact prevents him from working." Sullivan v. Zebley, 493 U. S. 521, 493 U. S. 535
Respondent's application for benefits was denied on the ground that her heart condition did not meet or equal a listed impairment. After exhausting administrative remedies, respondent sought judicial review of the Secretary's decision in the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey, invoking § 205(g) of the Social Security Act, as amended, 53 Stat. 1370, 42 U.S.C. § 406(g) (1982 ed.). [Footnote 2] The District
ibid. (citation omitted), that exception was deemed inapplicable in this case because the Secretary might persist in refusing benefits even after consideration of respondent's residual functional capacity on remand, and the District Court might thereafter order that benefits be granted, thereby providing the Secretary with an appealable
Although the District Court sustained the Secretary's conclusion that respondent did not suffer from an impairment that met or equaled the severity of a listed impairment, it concluded that the Secretary's ultimate conclusion that respondent was not disabled could not be sustained because other medical evidence suggested that respondent might not
Once the nature of the District Court's action is made clear, it becomes clear how this action fits into the structure of § 405(g). The first sentence of § 405(g) provides that an individual denied benefits by a final decision of the Secretary may obtain judicial review of that decision by filing "a civil action" in federal district court. The use of the term "a civil action"
Respondent makes several arguments countering this construction of § 405(g) and of the District Court's order, none of which persuades us. First, respondent argues that the remand
For the same reason, we reject respondent's argument, based on the seventh sentence of § 405(g), that the district court may enter an appealable final judgment upon reviewing the Secretary's post-remand "additional or modified findings of fact and decision." The post-remand review conducted by the District Court under the seventh sentence refers only to
Respondent also argues that the eighth sentence of § 405(g), providing that the judgment of the district court "shall be final except that it shall be subject to review in the same manner as a judgment in other civil actions," does not compel the conclusion that a judgment entered pursuant to the fourth sentence is immediately appealable. In respondent's view, Congress used the the term "final" in the eighth sentence only to make clear that a court's decision reviewing agency action could operate as law of the case and res judicata. Cf. City of Tacoma v. Taxpayers of Tacoma, 357 U. S. 320, 357 U. S. 336 (1958). But even if it is true that Congress used the term "final" to mean "conclusively decided," this reading does not preclude the construction of "final" to include "appealable," a meaning with which "final" is usually coupled. Nor does respondent consider the significance of Congress' use of the term "judgment" to describe the action
taken by the District Court in this case. [Footnote 7] Although respondent argues that the words "final decisions," as used in 28 U.S.C. § 1291, encompass no more than what was meant by the terms "final judgments and decrees" in the predecessor statute to § 1291, respondent recognizes that "final judgments" are at the core of matters appealable under § 1291, and respondent does not contest the power of Congress to define a class of orders as "final judgments" that by inference would be appealable under § 1291. Cf. Sears, Roebuck & Co. v. Mackey, 351 U. S. 427, 351 U. S. 434 (1956). This is what Congress has done in the fourth sentence of § 405(g). [Footnote 8]
Finally, respondent argues that we already decided last Term, in Sullivan v. Hudson, 490 U. S. 877 (1989), that a remand order of the kind entered in this case is not appealable as a final decision. Although there is language in Hudson
supporting respondent's interpretation of that case, we do not find that language sufficient to sustain respondent's contentions here. In Hudson, we held that, under the Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA), 28 U.S.C. § 2412(d)(1)(A), a federal court may award a Social Security claimant attorney's fees for representation during administrative proceedings held pursuant to a district court order remanding the action to the Secretary. We were concerned there with interpreting the term "any civil action" in the EAJA, [Footnote 9] not with deciding whether a remand order could be appealed as a "final decision" under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. We noted in Hudson that the language of § 2412(d)(1)(A) must be construed with reference to the purpose of the EAJA and the realities of litigation against the Government. The purpose of the EAJA was to counterbalance the financial disincentives to vindicating rights against the Government through litigation; given this purpose, we could not believe that Congress would "throw the Social Security claimant a lifeline that it knew was a foot short" by denying her attorney's fees for the mandatory proceedings on remand. Hudson, supra, at 490 U. S. 890. We also recognized that, even if a claimant had obtained a remand from the district court, she would not be a "prevailing party" for purposes of the EAJA until the result of the administrative proceedings held on remand was known. 490 U.S. at 490 U. S. 887-888. We therefore concluded that, for purposes of the EAJA, the administrative proceedings on remand "should be considered part and parcel of the action for which fees may be awarded." Id. at 490 U. S. 888. We did not say that proceedings on remand to an agency are "part and parcel"
It seems to be a rule for the use of subsequent legislative history that the legislators or committees of legislators whose post-enactment views are consulted must belong to the institution that passed the statute. Never, for example, have I seen floor statements of Canadian MPs cited concerning the meaning of a United States statute; only statements by Members of Congress qualify. No more connection than that, however, is required. It is assuredly not the rule that the legislators or committee members in question must have considered, or at least voted upon, the particular statute in question -- or even that they have been members of the particular Congress that enacted it. The subsequent legislative history rejected as inconclusive in today's footnote, for example, tells us (according to the Court's analysis) what committees of the 99th and 95th Congresses thought the 76th Congress intended.
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