Joan WAINWRIGHT, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, Defendant-Appellee

ORDER

The request for publication is GRANTED. The memorandum disposition filed May 2, 1991, is revised and expanded and designated as an authored opinion by Judge Trott.

OPINION

Joan Wainwright appeals summary judgment in favor of the Secretary of Health and Human Services (“Secretary”), who denied her application for disability benefits. We affirm the initial denial of benefits. We remand, however, to the district court with instructions to remand to the Secretary for consideration of new evidence submitted to the district court. The new evidence only became available due to recent advances in medical technology, and hence there was good cause for Wainwright’s failure to introduce the evidence earlier.

I

Wainwright injured her neck and spine during a car accident in January 1987. She filed a claim for disability benefits with the Social Security Administration, alleging she had been totally disabled since the accident. She asserted she was unable to do any type of work, due to neck pain that prevented her from sitting, standing or walking for more than a few minutes at a time.

The Administrative Law Judge (“ALJ”) found that Wainwright’s asserted degree of disability was not…