Ashe v. Saul, No. 20-15531 (9th Cir. 2020)
Annotate this Case
The Ninth Circuit vacated the district court's judgment dismissing as time-barred plaintiff's challenge to the Appeals Council's decision affirming the denial of social security disability benefits. The district court found that declarations from plaintiff and her attorney were insufficient to rebut the presumption that she received notice five days after the denial, triggering a 60-day deadline to file a challenge in federal court.
The panel held that plaintiff has made a sufficient "reasonable showing" to rebut the presumption that notice was received within five days of its issuance. In this case, the combination of circumstances—including unrebutted declarations from both plaintiff and her attorney, an officer of the court, that neither received the notice, where the face of the notice indicates that both were supposed to have been mailed copies—is sufficient to rebut the presumption and shift the burden of proving actual receipt to the government. Because the district court did not perform this burden-shifting analysis, the panel remanded for further proceedings.
Court Description: Social Security. The panel vacated the district court’s judgment dismissing as time-barred an action challenging the Social Security Administration Appeals Council’s decision affirming the denial of disability benefits. Plaintiff alleged that she never received notice of the Appeals Council’s decision affirming the denial of disability benefits. Plaintiff learned of the decision eighteen months after it was issued when her counsel called the Appeals Council. The next day, she filed this lawsuit in the district court. The district court found that the declarations from plaintiff and her attorney were insufficient to rebut the presumption, set forth under 20 C.F.R. § 422.210(c), that plaintiff received notice five days after the Appeals Council’s denial, triggering a 60-day deadline to file a challenge in federal court. The panel held that plaintiff made a sufficient “reasonable showing” to rebut the presumption that notice was received within five days of its issuance. The panel held that the combination of circumstances in this case— including unrebutted declarations from both plaintiff and her attorney, an officer of the court, that neither received the notice, where the face of the notice indicates that both were supposed to have been mailed copies—was sufficient to rebut the presumption and shift the burden of proving actual receipt to the government. Because the district court did not ASHE V. SAUL 3 perform this burden-shifting analysis, the panel vacated the judgment of the district court and remanded for proceedings consistent with its opinion.
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.