Malee Price v. Michael Astrue

MEMORANDUM

Malee Price appeals the district court’s judgment, which affirmed the Commissioner of Social Security’s denial of disability insurance and supplemental security income benefits for a period from June 15, 1995, to April 1, 2000. We affirm.

(1) Price asserts that the Commissioner and the district court improperly relied upon the law of the case doctrine when they considered this matter. We disagree. Absent an exception, the law of the case doctrine applies. See Old Person v. Brown, 312 F.3d 1036, 1039 (9th Cir. 2002); Jeffries v. Wood, 114 F.3d 1484 , 1489 (9th Cir.1997) (en banc); see also United States v. Smith, 389 F.3d 944, 948-49 (9th Cir.2004) (per curiam); Beecher v. Leavenworth State Bank, 209 F.2d 20, 22 (9th Cir.1953). Of course, we agree that we can decline to apply that doctrine when there is clear error and manifest injustice, or where there has been “intervening controlling authority” that changed the law. Old Person, 312 F.3d at 1039 ; see also Jeffries, 114 F.3d at 1489 .

(2) Price, in effect, asserts that the law of the case doctrine should not apply because the prior residual functional capacity determination was clearly erroneous. We do not…