U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, 2022

Terri Marsh-Quinlan v. Kilolo Kijakazi

Terri Marsh-Quinlan v. Kilolo Kijakazi
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit · Decided January 5, 2022

Terri Marsh-Quinlan v. Kilolo Kijakazi

Opinion

FILED NOT FOR PUBLICATION JAN 5 2022 UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT TERRI MARSH-QUINLAN, No. 21-35190 Plaintiff-Appellant, D.C. No. 3:19-cv-06136-MAT v. MEMORANDUM* KILOLO KIJAKAZI, Acting Commissioner of Social Security, Defendant-Appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington Mary Alice Theiler, Magistrate Judge, Presiding Argued and Submitted December 9, 2021 San Francisco, California Before: GRABER and COLLINS, Circuit Judges, and CHOE-GROVES,** Judge.

Plaintiff Terri Marsh-Quinlan appeals the district court’s denial of her motion for attorney’s fees under the Equal Access to Justice Act, 28 U.S.C. § 2412(d). Reviewing for abuse of discretion, Tobeler v. Colvin, 749 F.3d 830,

* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. ** The Honorable Jennifer Choe-Groves, Judge for the United States Court of International Trade, sitting by designation.

832 (9th Cir. 2014), we reverse and remand for calculation and award of fees and costs.

The district court abused its discretion when it determined that the government’s opposition to remand was substantially justified. “[W]e have affirmed district court denials of remand notwithstanding the existence of new evidence only when there would be substantial evidence supporting the ALJ’s denial of disability benefits even if the new evidence were credited and interpreted as argued by the claimant.” Gardner v. Berryhill, 856 F.3d 652, 658 (9th Cir. 2017).

Here, as in Gardner, 856 F.3d at 655, 657, the new evidence in the administrative record could not be discounted for the same reasons the ALJ gave for discounting the evidence that he had considered previously. Dr. Moore’s report addressed directly the primary insufficiencies that the ALJ identified in Dr. Brown’s report by providing narrative information that explained and supported her conclusions. Accordingly, here, as in Gardner, 856 F.3d at 658, “[r]emand was a foregone conclusion, so the Commissioner’s opposition to remand was therefore unreasonable.”

REVERSED and REMANDED with instructions.

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