[NOT FOR PUBLICATION NOT TO BE CITED AS PRECEDENT]

                 United States Court of Appeals

                     For the First Circuit











No. 99-1191



                    SIGFRIDO TORRES LAZARINI,



                      Plaintiff, Appellant,



                                v.



                          UNITED STATES,



                       Defendant, Appellee.







           APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT



                 FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO



        [Hon. Juan M. Perez-Gimenez, U.S. District Judge]







                              Before



                      Selya, Circuit Judge,

                Campbell, Senior Circuit Judge,

                   and Lipez, Circuit Judge.

                                

                                

                                

                                

     

     Rafael A. Oliveras Lopez De Victoria on brief for appellant.

     Guillermo Gil, United States Attorney, Miguel A. Fernandez,

Assistant United States Attorney, and Fidel A. Sevillano Del Rio,

Assistant United States Attorney, on brief for appellee.











February 17, 2000







  

  

           Per Curiam.   After a thorough review of the record

 and of the parties' submissions, we affirm.  It appears that

 appellant Sigfrido Torres Lazzarini ("Torres") did file an

 administrative claim for the mental suffering he says he

 endured as a result of the allegedly wrongful termination of

 his benefits by the Veteran's Administration; and we will

 assume that claim was filed in July 1992, as reflected in

 Exhibit F of Torres' Appendix.  Even if Torres' Federal Tort

 Claims Act claim was cognizable   a matter we do not decide  

 it is barred as untimely.  Torres' claim accrued in September

 1989, when he says Veteran's Administration officials conspired

 to withhold his benefits.  See United States v. Kubrick, 444

 U.S. 111, 113 (1979) (claim under the FTCA accrues "when the

 plaintiff knows both the existence and the cause of his

 injury.").  In order to have been timely, his administrative

 claim should have been filed by September 1991.  28 U.S.C.

 2401(b).

           Affirmed.  1st Cir. Loc. R. 27(c).