Opinion
BENJAMIN B. WAGNER, United States Attorney, GRACE M. KIM Regional Chief Counsel, DANIEL P. TALBERT, Special Assistant United States Attorney, Social Security Administration, San Francisco, CA, Attorneys for Defendant.
BESS BREWER, Attorney for Plaintiff.
STIPULATION AND ORDER TO REOPEN AND DISMISS
GREGORY G. HOLLOWS, Magistrate Judge.
The parties hereby stipulate, through their undersigned attorneys, and with the approval of the Court, that this case shall be reopened for the purpose of entering judgment for Plaintiff.
On February 28, 2011, pursuant to the stipulation of the parties, this Court remanded the instant case to the Commissioner for a new hearing. Certain exhibits were missing from the record, which made meaningful review of the case impossible. On September 20, 2011, an administrative law judge (ALJ) issued a fully favorable decision in Plaintiff's case, with an amended onset date, i.e., finding Plaintiff to be disabled after the previous ALJ decision ( see Exhibit 1). As such, Plaintiff is not a prevailing party in this case, and has agreed to dismiss this action.
Now that the administrative proceedings have concluded, reopening is necessary. In a sentence-six remand case, the Court retains jurisdiction following the remand. See Melkonyan v. Sullivan, 501 U.S. 89, 98 (1991) (district court retains jurisdiction over Social Security cases remanded under 42 U.S.C. § 405(g), sentence six, and where the final administrative decision is favorable to one party or the other, the Commissioner is to return to the court following completion of the administrative proceedings on remand so that the court may enter a final judgment or, as in this case, a dismissal); see also Shalala v. Schaefer, 509 U.S. 292, 298-300 (1993).
[A] sentence six remand, because of clear language in the social security statute, implies and necessarily involves a reservation of jurisdiction for the future and contemplates further proceedings in the district court and a final judgment at the conclusion thereof. A sentence six remand judgment, the Court said, is therefore always interlocutory and never a "final" judgment.
Carrol v. Sullivan, 802 F.Supp. 295, 300 (C.D.Cal. 1992) ( paraphrasing and quoting Melkonyan ).
It is therefore appropriate to reopen this case in order to resolve the Court's sentence-six jurisdiction. Upon reopening, the parties stipulate that the case shall be dismissed.
ORDER
Pursuant to stipulation, it is so ordered.