Sipp v. Astrue, No. 10-3278 (8th Cir. 2011)
Annotate this CasePlaintiff received disability insurance benefits under the Social Security Act 42 U.S.C. 301 et seq., between September 1994 and March 2004. After an investigation, the Social Security Administration ("SSA") notified plaintiff that she was ineligible for disability benefits because her employment income had exceeded SSA limits and determined that she was required to repay more than $60,000 in over paid benefits. At issue was whether the district court properly entered judgment for the SSA and denied plaintiff's waiver of over payment recovery and affirmed the ALJ's conclusion that it lacked authority to consider plaintiff's new argument contesting the amount of the overpayment itself. The court held that plaintiff failed to meet the administrative exhaustion requirement because she did not timely challenge her overpayment. Accordingly, since no final decision was made, the district court lacked jurisdiction under 42 U.S.C. 405(g) to consider plaintiff's challenge to the overpayment. The court also held that plaintiff was not entitled to a waiver of overpayment recovery because substantial evidence showed that she was not without fault in causing the overpayment and that the ALJ properly found that plaintiff knew or should have known that her work information was material because of her agreement to report such work in her benefit applications. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court.
Court Description: Civil case - Social Security. Claimant failed to exhaust her administrative remedies with respect to her challenge to an overpayment; district court did not err in rejecting claimant's request that the court use its equitable powers to excuse her failure to pursue her challenge to the overpayment through administrative channels within the appropriate time period; substantial evidence supported the agency's decision to deny the request for waiver.
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