Janette B. McAuley v. KILOLO KIJAKAZI, Acting Commissioner of Social Security

NOT FOR PUBLICATION
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
JANETTE B. MCAULEY,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
KILOLO KIJAKAZI, Acting
Commissioner of Social Security,
Defendant-Appellee.
No. 21-16334
D.C. No. 2:20-cv-01335-DJH
MEMORANDUM*
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the District of Arizona
Diane J. Humetewa, District Judge, Presiding
Submitted June 14, 2022**
San Francisco, California
Before: S.R. THOMAS, GOULD, and BEA, Circuit Judges.
Plaintiff Janette McAuley appeals from the district court’s order remanding
her case to the Social Security Administration (“SSA”) for further administrative
proceedings. We review the district court’s decision for an abuse of discretion,
FILED
JUN 22 2022
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
** The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision
without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2).

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Treichler v. Comm’r of Soc. Sec. Admin., 775 F.3d 1090, 1098 (9th Cir. 2014), and
we affirm. Because the parties are familiar with the history of this case, we need
not recount it here.
On appeal, McAuley argues that the district court should have directed an
award of benefits, rather than remanding for further administrative proceedings.
In order to even have the discretion to credit testimony as true, and remand to the
SSA for a direct award of benefits, a court first must determine that additional
proceedings “would serve no useful purpose” because there are no outstanding
“conflicts and ambiguities” in the record regarding the extent of the claimant’s
disabling limitations. Dominguez v. Colvin, 808 F.3d 403, 407 (9th Cir. 2015).
Here, the district court determined that such “conflicts and ambiguities”
existed, citing inconsistencies in the medical records, performance status scores
from multiple treating physicians indicating that McAuley could perform light
work, and determinations by two separate state agency consulting physicians that
McAuley is not disabled.
Given the record, it was not an abuse of discretion for the district court to
conclude that additional administrative proceedings were warranted. See
Treichler, 775 F.3d at 1104–05. Therefore, we affirm the judgment of the district
court. We need not and do not address any other issues raised by the parties.
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AFFIRMED.
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