Forney v. Apfel, 524 U.S. 266, 4 (1998)

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Cite as: 524 U. S. 266 (1998)

Opinion of the Court

tiorari to consider the merits of this position, and we appointed an amicus to defend the Ninth Circuit's decision. We now agree with Forney and the Solicitor General that the Court of Appeals should have heard Forney's appeal.

II

Section 1291 of Title 28 of the United States Code grants the "courts of appeals . . . jurisdiction of appeals from all final decisions of the district courts." (Emphasis added.) Forney's appeal falls within the scope of this jurisdictional grant. That is because the District Court entered its judgment under the authority of the special "judicial review" provision of the Social Security Act, which says, in its fourth sentence, that "district court[s]" (reviewing, for example, agency denials of Social Security disability claims)

"shall have power to enter . . . a judgment affirming, modifying, or reversing the decision of the [agency] with or without remanding the cause for a rehearing," 42 U. S. C. § 405(g) (emphasis added),

and which adds, in its eighth sentence, that the

"judgment of the court shall be final except that it shall be subject to review in the same manner as a judgment in other civil actions," ibid. (emphases added).

This Court has previously held that this statutory language means what it says, namely, that a district court order remanding a Social Security disability benefit claim to the agency for further proceedings is a "final judgment" for purposes of § 1291 and it is, therefore, appealable. Sullivan v. Finkelstein, 496 U. S. 617 (1990); see also Shalala v. Schaefer, 509 U. S. 292, 294 (1993) (statute that requires attorney's fees application to be filed within "thirty days of final judgment" requires filing within 30 days of entry of § 405(g) "sentence four" district court remand order, not within 30 days of final agency decision after remand).

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