Jenkins v. Sullivan, 88-3213
| Decision Date | 10 May 1989 |
| Docket Number | No. 88-3213,88-3213 |
| Citation | 894 F.2d 402 |
| Parties | Unpublished Disposition NOTICE: Fourth Circuit I.O.P. 36.6 states that citation of unpublished dispositions is disfavored except for establishing res judicata, estoppel, or the law of the case and requires service of copies of cited unpublished dispositions of the Fourth Circuit. Garland JENKINS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Louis W. SULLIVAN, Secretary, Department of Health and Human Services, Defendant-Appellee. . Argued: |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit |
Lee Edward Wilder (Rutter & Montagna, on brief), for appellant.
William Brian Reeser, Assistant Regional Counsel (Beverly Dennis, III, Chief Counsel, Region III); Charlotte Hardnett, Chief, Social Security Litigation Division, Office of the General Counsel, Department of Health & Human Services; Henry E. Hudson, United States Attorney; Raymond A. Jackson, Assistant United States Attorney, on brief), for appellee.
Before WIDENER and WILKINS, Circuit Judges, and JAMES C. TURK, Chief United States District Judge for the Western District of Virginia, sitting by designation.
This case comes to us on appeal for a second time from the district court's affirmance of the Secretary's denial of disability benefits. We vacate and order an award of benefits.
Garland Jenkins, who was 45 years old at the time of his first hearing, was last employed as a laborer at a grain receiving warehouse. Jenkins never completed the first grade and cannot read or write. His work history consists solely of unskilled laboring jobs. On July 30, 1982, he fractured his left tibia at work; he was admitted to surgery the same day. Despite the operation, Jenkins still complains of pain in his leg since the accident; and x-rays reveal that Jenkins has undergone some degeneration of the lumbar spine. Jenkins claims he is disabled and, thus, entitled to benefits.
At Jenkins' first hearing, the administrative law judge applied the grids found in 20 C.F.R. Part 404, subpart P, Appendix 2, and determined that the grids required a finding that Jenkins was not disabled. The ALJ also discredited Jenkins' testimony on pain based partially on his observation that Jenkins did not seem to be in any discomfort during the hearing, and partially on his conclusion that Jenkins' physical condition did not support the claim of pain. The Appeals Council upheld the ALJ's decision, as did the district court.
A panel of this court vacated and remanded the case to the Secretary. Jenkins v. Bowen, No. 86-3969 (4th Cir. May 18, 1987) (unpublished), 819 F.2d 1138 (table). We found that the ALJ failed to apply the proper standard for evaluating a claim of disabling pain. The ALJ also erred, we held, by engaging in so-called "sit and squirm jurisprudence" based on his observations of Jenkins at the hearing and by failing to require the Secretary to bear the burden of producing vocational evidence of non-disability.
On remand, the ALJ once again determined that Jenkins is not disabled and denied benefits. The ALJ found that Jenkins suffered from "the residuals of an ankle injury, degenerative disc disease, hypertension and gastritis." He again discredited Jenkins' claim of disabling pain and held that none of these impairments, when considered alone or in combination, met or was equivalent to the criteria for disability as set out in the listing of impairments. The ALJ held that Jenkins was capable of performing a full range of medium work. On appeal, the Benefits Review Board and the district court upheld the Secretary's denial of benefits.
Jenkins claims the ALJ improperly evaluated his complaints of pain again. We agree. The standard for evaluating disabling pain was recently adopted by Congress in the Social Security Disability Reform Act of 1984. The standard reads:
An individual's statement as to pain or other symptoms shall not alone be conclusive evidence of disability as defined in this section; there must be medical signs and findings, established by medically acceptable clinical or laboratory diagnostic techniques, which show the existence of a medical impairment that results from anatomical, physiological, or psychological abnormalities which could reasonably be expected to produce the pain or other symptoms alleged and which, when considered with all evidence required to be furnished under this paragraph (including statements of the individual or his physician as to the intensity and persistence of such pain or other symptoms which may reasonably be accepted as consistent with the medical signs and findings), would lead to a conclusion that the individual is under a disability. Objective medical...
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