Klemm v. Astrue
United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
16 September 2008
No. 06-16981 D.C. No. CV 04-2140 DAD

Denial of Disability Insurance: When can Court Assume Jurisdiction?

When the Commissioner of the Social Security Administration denied an applicant’s motion to reopen an application for Disability Insurance Benefits (DIB, for brevity), the case finds its way to the district court. It now reached the United States Court of Appeals for adjudication.

It appears that the petitioner Klemm filed a DIB application on 23 October 1996 for disability due to constant pain from a “bad back and both knees” with the onset date of 1 October 1992. The Commissioner denied the same on 7 December 1996. Klemm did not appeal the denial.

Nearly six years later or on 12 April 2002, Klemm filed a second DIB and SSI application with the SSA. He again alleged disability with the same onset date of 1 October 1992. The application was again denied initially and on recon. He thereafter requested for a hearing with an ALJ and asked that the 1996 denial of his application be re-opened.

Klemm’s motion to reopen was also denied for being untimely. The ALJ found that there is “no evidence in the record that the claimant lacked the mental capacity to timely request review of the prior adverse determination.” As to the remainder of his application, the ALJ determined that Klemm was disabled due to obesity, sleep apnea, and degenerative arthritis in the knee. The Appeals Council affirmed the ALJ decision.

So Klemm went to the district court arguing that, among others, “he lacked the mental capacity to timely request review” of the first denial of his application for benefits and moved for a summary judgment. The Commissioner in turn filed a motion to dismiss on the ground of lack of subject matter jurisdiction – the district court granted the Commissioner’s motion.

Klemm now goes to the United States Court of Appeals.

In deciding the instant case before it, the Court first determined whether it has jurisdiction over Klemm’s appeal. The Court said that because an agency of the government of the US is involved, the notice of appeal was required to be filed within sixty-days after the entry of final judgment. It appears that Klemm failed to follow local rules on electronic filing but nonetheless filed within the jurisdictional period.

In this regard, the Court held that such failures do not defeat the Court’s jurisdiction because filing requirements dictated by local rules are not jurisdictional. Local rules govern local practice, but a violation of local rules cannot divest the Court of the jurisdiction the Congress afforded to it. Thus, the Court assumed jurisdiction.

As regards the relevant issue on Social Security, the Court held that the Social Security Act grants to district court jurisdiction to review only “final decisions” of the Commissioner. And because a denial of Klemm’s motion to reopen is a discretionary decision, it is not final and is thus not generally reviewable by the district court.

However, one of the recognized exceptions to this rule is where the denial to reopen is challenged on constitutional grounds such as due process violation. In this case, Klemm contended that the denial to reopen violated his due process rights because mental impairment prevented him from petitioning for review.

However still, the Court held that Klemm failed to present a colorable due process claim because his allegation of mental impairment is completely unsupported by facts. Said the Court, “nothing in the record evinces a mental impairment that could have prevented Klemm from understanding the process of appeal.”

Due to this, the Court finds Klemm’s constitutional claim “wholly insubstantial”, thus, hold that he failed to state a colorable constitutional claim. Finally, the Court ruled that in the absence of a colorable constitutional claim, the district court does not have jurisdiction to hear Klemm’s claim.