MARYANN CELEDON V. ANDREW SAUL, No. 17-16979 (9th Cir. 2019)
Annotate this Case
Download PDF
NOT FOR PUBLICATION UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FILED SEP 11 2019 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT MARYANN CELEDON, U.S. COURT OF APPEALS No. 17-16979 Plaintiff-Appellant, D.C. No. 1:16-cv-00440-JLT v. MEMORANDUM* ANDREW M. SAUL, Commissioner of Social Security, Defendant-Appellee. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California Jennifer L. Thurston, Magistrate Judge, Presiding Submitted September 9, 2019** Before: LEAVY, TROTT, and SILVERMAN, Circuit Judges Maryann Celedon appeals the district court’s judgment affirming the Commissioner of Social Security’s denial of her application for disability insurance benefits and supplemental security income benefits under Titles II and * This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. ** The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2). XVI of the Social Security Act. At step four of the sequential evaluation process, the administrative law judge (ALJ) determined that Celedon could perform her past relevant work as a switchboard operator. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. We review a district court’s decision not to apply the law of the case doctrine for abuse of discretion and whether an ALJ has followed the remand order of the district court in compliance with the rule of mandate de novo, Stacy v. Colvin, 825 F.3d 563, 567-68 (9th Cir. 2016), and we affirm. The district court did not abuse its discretion in declining to apply the law of the case doctrine. The district court remanded the ALJ’s initial decision because the record was not fully developed, and the ALJ on remand properly developed the record by eliciting additional vocational expert testimony and accepting additional medical evidence in order to clarify Celedon’s residual functional capacity (“RFC”). See id. at 567 (stating that the law of the case doctrine should not be applied “when the evidence on remand is substantially different.”). The district court did not err in concluding that the ALJ did not violate the rule of mandate with respect to the ALJ’s reformulation of Celedon’s RFC because the district court’s remand order did not preclude the ALJ from reformulating Celedon’s RFC. See id. at 568-69 (stating that an ALJ may “reexamine any issue on remand that is not foreclosed by the mandate.”). AFFIRMED. 2 17-16979
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
