Boyanowski v. Colvin
| Decision Date | 02 July 2013 |
| Docket Number | CAUSE NO.: 1:12-CV-139-JEM |
| Parties | MARSHA K. BOYANOWSKI, Plaintiff, v. CAROLYN W. COLVIN, Acting Commissioner of the Social Security Administration, Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Indiana |
This matter is before the Court on a Complaint [DE 1], filed by Plaintiff Marsha K. Boyanowski on May 1, 2012, and Plaintiff's Brief in Support of Plaintiff's Complaint to Review Decision of Commissioner of Social Security Administration [DE 20], filed by Plaintiff on October 15, 2012. Plaintiff requests that the March 2, 2012, decision of the Appeals Council to deny her disability insurance benefits be reversed or, alternatively, remanded for further proceedings before a new Administrative Law Judge ("ALJ"). For the reasons set forth below, the Court grants Plaintiff's request for remand.
On March 24, 2009, Plaintiff filed an application for disability insurance benefits ("DIB"), alleging a disability onset date of January 1, 2004. Plaintiff's application was denied initially and upon reconsideration, and Plaintiff requested a hearing in front of an ALJ. A hearing was held on July 19, 2010 at which Plaintiff amended her alleged onset date to May 31, 2008, and Plaintiff, her husband, and Vocational Expert ("VE") Michelle Peters testified. In his decision dated November 19, 2010, the ALJ found Plaintiff not disabled from the time of her alleged onset date through a date last insured ("DLI") of June 30, 2009. Plaintiff had alerted the ALJ at the hearing that the ALJ had miscalculated the DLI, which should have been March 31, 2011, but it remained uncorrected in theALJ's decision.
Plaintiff timely filed a Request for Review of Hearing Decision/Order with the Appeals Council on December 7, 2010. The Appeals Council granted review and in its decision dated March 2, 2012, corrected the DLI to June 30, 2011. It left the findings of the ALJ otherwise undisturbed. The Plaintiff did not further appeal the Appeals Council decision, making it the final decision of the Commissioner. See 20 C.F.R. § 404.981.
The parties filed forms of consent to have this case assigned to a United States Magistrate Judge to conduct all further proceedings and to order the entry of a final judgment in this case. Therefore, this Court has jurisdiction to decide this case pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 636(c) and 42 U.S.C. § 405(g).
Plaintiff was born in 1966 and was 44 years old on the date of the hearing. She attended college from 2003 through 2008 and was one class short of a degree in pastoral ministry. In the fifteen years prior to her alleged onset date, her only employment was as an interpreter for the deaf.
Plaintiff's record reflects a history of frequent episodes of pyelonephritis, or kidney infections, accompanied by kidney stones and urinary tract infections, dating back to approximately 1984. Records available to the ALJ date back to 1992, when Plaintiff moved to Indiana. Treatment with long-term suppressive medication helped to control her pyelonephritis. However, in 1992 Plaintiff reported to Dr. Nancy Hockley, a urologist at Parkview Memorial Hospital in Fort Wayne, that she continued to have three to four urinary tract infections a year even on suppressivemedications. In July 1992, Plaintiff visited the Parkview emergency room for severe flank pain caused by a suspected kidney stone. A cystoscopy was performed under general anesthetic, and a large amount of mucus was removed from Plaintiff's right ureter. Because Dr. Hockley also saw evidence of urine refluxing from the ureters back into the kidneys during the cystoscopy, bilateral ureteral reimplantation surgery was performed in September 1992, a procedure in which the ureters were severed from the bladder and reattached to correct abnormal positioning.
Dr. Hockley reported in 1995 that Plaintiff continued to have urinary tract infections after the reimplantation surgery. The record shows that Plaintiff continued to complain to Dr. Hockley of flank and abdominal pain, sometimes severe, in the years that followed. She sought treatment in the emergency room on numerous occasions, receiving intravenous pain medication on some of her visits. She was hospitalized at least once. Test results sometimes reflected urinary tract infections and other times kidney stones or other calcifications. In 1993 and 1995, Plaintiff was referred to the Cleveland Clinic, where they recommended further long-term suppressive medications. In 1997, Plaintiff underwent a hysterectomy, and the surgeons reported being unable to place ureteral stents because of heavy scarring of the bladder and shortened, crisscrossed ureters.
Plaintiff's records show fairly consistent complaints and testing until August 2009 when Dr. Donald Urban performed an cystoscopy to investigate yet another bout of abdominal pain. Because he found mucus and air in Plaintiff's bladder, Dr. Urban suspected a possible colovesical fistula, a pathway between the colon and bladder. An earlier CT scan in August 2008 and colonoscopy in September 2008 had revealed scattered colonic diverticulosis of moderate severity. Dr. Urban referred Plaintiff to colorectal surgeon Dr. Kelly Klinker for evaluation of the possible fistula. Although initial testing indicated no signs of a fistula, Dr. Klinker recommended diagnosticlaproscopic surgery because Plaintiff continued to have abdominal pains and Dr. Urban continued to be concerned about a possible fistula. Dr. Klinker performed the surgery on January 13, 2010. She found the sigmoid colon "quite adherent" to the bladder and "intimately involved" with the left ureter, complicating the surgery and requiring her to convert it from laproscopic to open surgery. The sigmoid colon was removed and surgery completed. Plaintiff returned to surgery hours later because of post-operation hemorrhaging, and a small bowel resection was performed. At a January 25, 2010, follow-up exam, Plaintiff told Dr. Klinker that she continued to have urinary symptoms but that they were improved. On February 8, 2010, Dr. Klinker wrote that Plaintiff was "doing very well."
Plaintiff's record also reflects a history of chronic pain, with diagnoses of rheumatoid arthritis, fibromyalgia, and chronic regional pain syndrome at various times. She also frequently complained to doctors of migraine headaches. Plaintiff has additionally been diagnosed with sleep apnea, diabetes, and hypertension and has complained at various times of balance issues, tremors, and swelling in her hands, ankles, and feet.
Dr. Syed Sohail performed a consultative examination on May 1, 2009. Dr. Sohail found diffuse tenderness in Plaintiff's muscles of both shoulders, elbows, hips, and knees, but he noted normal muscle tone, grip strength, and ability to perform fine and gross movements. Dr. Sohail also observed some musculoskeletal problems, noting a slightly antalgic gait, slightly stooping station, inability to walk on heels and toes, and poor and unsustainable tandem walk. He concluded that Plaintiff could do light work involving lifting less than fifteen pounds. Reviewing physician Dr. R. Bond completed a Residual Functioning Capacity Assessment on June 3, 2009, determining that Plaintiff could frequently lift and carry ten pounds and occasionally twenty. He also concluded thatshe could stand and walk for six hours out of an eight-hour workday and sit six out of eight hours. He noted that Plaintiff could occasionally climb, balance, stoop, kneel, crouch, and crawl but had no other limitations. He also wrote that Plaintiff's self-reported symptoms were "credible to the degree her functioning is limited by this RFC" without further elaboration.
At the hearing, Plaintiff testified that she suffers from abdominal pain caused by her various illnesses. First, she stated that she has pain in the area of her kidneys due to swelling caused by her recurring pyelonephritis. She stated that the problem had gotten worse in the two years preceding the hearing, occurring approximately twice weekly and requiring her to lie in bed with a heating pad to ease the pain. She also testified that she suffers three to four urinary tract infections a year and that she would miss three to four days of work for each infection before medications start to take effect. She testified to additional abdominal pain unrelated to her kidneys in her upper right quadrant that had occurred about once a month over the last "couple of years," pain that she rated as a nine on a ten point scale. While unsure of the cause, she believed the pain was related to possible gallbladder problems or to adhesions resulting from several surgeries, including surgeries for endometriosis years earlier and the surgery on her colon and small intestine in January 2010, six months prior to the hearing. She was unsure if doctors believed the recent colon surgery had corrected the flare-ups of her adhesions but stated that her life had not improved since the surgery.
Plaintiff also testified that she suffers from frequent migraines that last five to six hours and require her to rest in a quiet, dark place. She demonstrated tremors in her hands to the ALJ and said her speech the day of the hearing demonstrated her typical slurred speech. According to Plaintiff, she sometimes avoids using her hands to keyboard or sign when they ache due to swelling, whichcan occur when she walks or is sometimes present when she wakes up. She also testified to "pretty constant" tingling or numbness in her hands and feet, due either to her diabetes or fibromyalgia. Plaintiff rated pain from her fibromyalgia in her neck, hips, and knees as a nine on a ten point scale on "bad days," which she said occur three or four days a week.
Finally, Plaintiff testified about the combined effect of her impairments on her ability to function. She stated that she limits her walking to between rooms of her house...
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