Lewis v. Barnhart, 99-35922.

• Citation: 281 F.3d 1081
• Decision Date: 01 March 2002
• Docket Number: No. 99-35922.,99-35922.
• Parties: Joyce LEWIS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Jo Anne B. BARNHART,<SMALL><SUP>*</SUP></SMALL> Commissioner of Social Security, Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (9th Circuit)

Page 1081

281 F.3d 1081

Joyce LEWIS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Jo Anne B. BARNHART,^* Commissioner of Social Security, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 99-35922.

United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.

Argued and Submitted June 4, 2001.

Filed March 1, 2002.

Elie Halpern, Elie Halpern and Associates, Olympia, WA, and Ralph Wilborn, Ralph Wilborn & Etta L. Wilborn, P.C., Tucson, AZ, for the plaintiff-appellant.

Vikash Chhagan, Assist. Reg. Counsel, Social Security Administration, Seattle, WA, and Brian C. Kipnis, Seattle, WA, for the defendant-appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington; Franklin D. Burgess, District

Judge, Presiding. D.C. No. CV-98-5337-FDB.

Before: BROWNING, WALLACE, and T.G. NELSON, Circuit Judges.

Opinion by Judge WALLACE; Dissent by Judge JAMES R. BROWNING.

WALLACE, Circuit Judge.

Lewis appeals from the district court's judgment in this Social Security disability action denying her motion for attorneys' fees under the Equal Access to Justice Act, 28 U.S.C. § 2412(Act). The district court had jurisdiction pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 405(g) to review the merits of the underlying case and had jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 2412 to decide the motion for attorneys' fees. We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291. We affirm.

I

Lewis applied for disability insurance benefits under Title II of the Social Security Act on July 26, 1995, alleging that she had become disabled as a result of a back injury sustained in August 1994. Just prior to this injury, Lewis was working at a gas station as a cashier and attendant. In her application for benefits, Lewis reported that her work required her to operate the cash register, take readings on the gasoline pumps, mop floors, and clean bathrooms. She indicated that this job required her to stand six hours per day, bend frequently, lift up to ten pounds frequently, carry boxes of merchandise and cases of soda, and sometime lift items as heavy as twenty pounds. At the hearing before the Administrative Law Judge (ALJ), Lewis testified that the job "involved being a cashier and a janitor. You clean bathrooms. You mop floors. You did windows, stocked the coolers, put merchandise away, and when I worked there I worked for a friend so he made accommodations for my limitations." However, she explained that when heavy boxes and soft drink orders were delivered the male employees would take care of moving them, and that she was allowed to have a chair or stool to sit on while she worked.

The ALJ stated, after hearing this response, "So you didn't do any other work. You were a cashier." Lewis responded, "I did everything, but lifting — I didn't do a lot of heavy lifting like with the cases of soft drinks and heavy merchandise." She testified that this "everything but lifting" basically consisted of taking money, making change, writing up credit card slips, cleaning bathrooms, and "some mopping." Later in the hearing, the ALJ asked whether she was allowed to sit while performing her cashiering duties, and Lewis replied, "Most of the time." The record also contained Lewis's statement, made shortly after she filed her application, to her doctor, Dr. Trucksees, that she would be capable of doing her past job if given the opportunity to sit periodically and change positions throughout the day.

Applying the Social Security Administration's sequential evaluation process, the ALJ determined that Lewis (1) had not engaged in any substantial gainful activity since August 15, 1994; (2) suffered a "severe" medically-determined impairment "which causes significant vocationally relevant limitations;" (3) retained the residual functional capacity to perform only sedentary work, or work that requires maximum lifting of ten pounds and no prolonged standing or walking; and (4) was not required to perform more than sedentary work in her former job as a gas station attendant. Because the ALJ found that Lewis had the ability to perform her past relevant work, he decided that she was not disabled within the meaning of the Social Security Act. The ALJ's decision became the final decision of the Commissioner when the Appeals Council declined to review it.

Lewis timely sought judicial review of the Commissioner's final decision. A magistrate judge issued a Report and Recommendation affirming that decision; however, the district court declined to adopt the magistrate judge's recommendation. The district court held that the ALJ "badly mischaracterize[d] Lewis' testimony regarding the exertional demands of her past relevant work as a gas station attendant and ignored the "clear direct evidence that her job required more than sedentary work."" The district court emphasized Lewis's statements in her benefits application and discounted Lewis's statement to Dr. Trucksees because Dr. Trucksees had reported Lewis as capable of light work, which was a conclusion rejected by the ALJ.

Lewis moved for an attorneys' fee award pursuant to the Act. The district court denied Lewis's motion, stating that "the evidence was not entirely lacking in ambivalence.... [T]here was evidence that the plaintiff ... remarked to Dr. Trucksees that she thought she could return to her service station attendant job. Other evidence made it less than clear to precisely what degree her service station job exceeded the demands of sedentary activity." The district court also stated, "I must further note that [the magistrate judge's] agreement with the ALJ's conclusion also suggests that the Commissioner was `substantially justified' in opposing the award of benefits in this case."

II

We review a district court's denial of attorneys' fees under the Act for an abuse of discretion. Corbin v. Apfel, 149 F.3d 1051, 1052 (9th Cir.1998). Under the Act, attorneys' fees are to be awarded to a party winning a sentence-four remand unless the Commissioner shows that his position with respect to the issue on which the district court based its remand was "substantially justified." Flores v. Shalala, 49 F.3d 562, 568-69 (9th Cir.1995). The Commissioner is "substantially justified" if his position met "the traditional reasonableness standard — that is `justified in substance or in the main,' or `to a degree that could satisfy a reasonable person.'" Corbin, 149 F.3d at 1052, quoting Pierce v. Underwood, 487 U.S. 552, 565, 108 S.Ct. 2541, 101 L.Ed.2d 490 (1988). The Supreme Court has explained that "a position can be justified even though it is not correct, and we believe it can be substantially... justified ... if it has a reasonable basis in law and fact." Pierce, 487 U.S. at 566 n. 2, 108 S.Ct. 2541.

The ALJ's error, according to the district court, was a failure to characterize properly Lewis's testimony at step four of the evaluation process. At step four, Lewis had the burden of showing that she could no longer perform her past relevant work. Pinto v. Massanari, 249 F.3d 840, 844 (9th Cir.2001). The ALJ had the duty "to make the requisite factual findings to support his conclusion." Id. This required the ALJ to examine Lewis's "`residual functional capacity and the physical and mental demands'" of Lewis's past relevant work. Id. at 844-45 (quoting 20 C.F.R. §§ 404.1520(e) and 416.920(e)).

A claimant must be able to perform her past relevant work either as actually performed or as generally performed in the national economy. Id. at 845. The Social Security Regulations provide that the ALJ may draw on two sources of information to define the claimant's past relevant work as actually performed: (1) the claimant's own testimony, and (2) a properly completed vocational report. Id. In assessing a claimant's testimony, the ALJ is responsible for determining credibility and resolving conflicts and ambiguities. Meanel v. Apfel, 172 F.3d 1111, 1113 (9th Cir.1999).

Here, the ALJ reviewed Lewis's testimony about her past work at the gas station as she actually performed it and resolved ambiguities in the testimony against Lewis. Although the district court ultimately found that the ALJ erroneously characterized Lewis's testimony, the Commissioner's decision to defend the ALJ's position on step four in the evaluation process had a reasonable basis in law since, as explained above, the ALJ must assess the claimant's testimony and may use that testimony to define past relevant work as actually performed. See Pinto, 249 F.3d at 844-45; Meanel, 172 F.3d at 1113.

The district court also held that the Commissioner's position had a reasonable basis in fact. There is testimony in the record that may reasonably be viewed as casting doubt on Lewis's statements in her benefits application. Lewis testified she was able to sit for several hours during the day and that male employees did most of the lifting. There is also her statement to Dr. Trucksees that she was able to perform the work at the gas station with these accommodations. These pieces of evidence relate to the specific error — the definition of past relevant work — for which the district court reversed the ALJ's decision. The district court expressly linked this evidence to this specific error by stating, "I cannot say that it was completely unreasonable for the ALJ to conclude that the plaintiff could return to her past relevant work."

Finally, Lewis argues that the district court committed an error of law in considering the magistrate judge's recommendation to uphold the ALJ's decision that the Commissioner was substantially justified. The Supreme Court has stated, "the fact that one other court agreed or disagreed with the Government does not establish whether its position was substantially justified." Pierce, 487 U.S. at 569, 108 S.Ct. 2541. However, the Supreme Court did not hold that it is improper for a court to consider the opinions of other judges. The Supreme Court explained, "a string of losses can be indicative; and even more so a string of successes." Id. Thus, the district court could consider the magistrate judge's...