[NOT FOR PUBLICATION NOT TO BE CITED AS PRECEDENT]

                 United States Court of Appeals

                     For the First Circuit









No. 98-2001



                          TRESSA ALSTON,

                    On Behalf of Kyle Alston,



                      Plaintiff, Appellant,



                                v.



                 KENNETH S. APFEL, COMMISSIONER,

                 SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION,



                       Defendant, Appellee.







           APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT



                 FOR THE DISTRICT OF RHODE ISLAND



        [Hon. Robert W. Lovegreen, U.S. Magistrate Judge]







                              Before



                      Selya, Circuit Judge,

                 Bownes, Senior Circuit Judge,

                   and Stahl, Circuit Judge.

                                

                                

                                

     Donna M. Nesselbush and Green, Greenberg & Nesselbush on brief

for appellant.

     Margaret E. Curran, United States Attorney, Anthony C.

Digioia, Assistant United States Attorney, Arthur J. Fried, General

Counsel, Charlotte Hardnett, Principal Deputy General Counsel, John

M. Sacchetti, Associate General Counsel, and Karen J. Aviles,

Litigation Branch, Office of the General Counsel, Social Security

Administration, on brief for appellee.







JULY 12, 1999









 

 

            Per Curiam.  Claimant-appellant was awarded social

 security survivor's benefits beginning in 1993.  He now seeks

 to reopen an unsuccessful 1982 application in order to obtain

 survivor's benefits for the years 1982-93.  

            The district court held that it lacked subject matter

 jurisdiction to review the Secretary's decision not to reopen

 the denial of the 1982 application in the absence of a

 colorable constitutional claim.  See Califano v. Sanders, 430

 U.S. 99 (1977).  Several constitutional claims were alleged by

 appellant below, but they were "not colorable."

            Here, appellant attempts to supply the jurisdictional

 element by alleging a new constitutional claim which was not

 squarely presented below.  He argues that the SSA's initial

 notice denying his 1982 application violated due process

 because it did not warn that a failure to request

 reconsideration "would result in a loss of benefits which would

 remain forever final."  The Secretary responds, inter alia,

 that appellant waived this argument by failing to urge it in

 the district court.

            We have reviewed with care the record citations which

 appellant has offered in reply to the  Secretary's objection. 

 Our own reading is that except for a single, awkwardly-placed

 sentence in one of his two lengthy legal memoranda, appellant

 did not urge in the district court the claim which he seeks to

 raise here.

            Arguments not fully developed in the lower court are

 deemed waived on appeal.  Armistead v. C & M Transp., Inc., 49

 F.3d 43, 44 n.2 (1st Cir. 1995).  It is not enough to merely

 mention a possible argument; a litigant has an obligation to

 spell out the argument squarely and distinctly.  United States

 v. Zannino, 895 F.2d 1, 14 (1st Cir.), cert. denied, 494 U.S.

 1082 (1990).  

            Since the sole issue raised on appeal was not fairly

 presented in the district court, the judgment is affirmed. 

 While we need not reach it, we note that any review of the

 merits of appellant's new constitutional claim would be stymied

 in any event by the apparent lack of a clear causal connection

 between the notice's alleged deficiency and appellant's loss of

 benefits.

            Affirmed.