Landry v. Heckler

• Citation: 782 F.2d 1551
• Decision Date: 27 February 1986
• Docket Number: No. 85-3059,85-3059
• Parties: , Unempl.Ins.Rep. CCH 16,658 Lawrence LANDRY, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Margaret M. HECKLER, as Secretary of Health & Human Services, Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (11th Circuit)

Page 1551

782 F.2d 1551

12 Soc.Sec.Rep.Ser. 241, Unempl.Ins.Rep. CCH 16,658

Lawrence LANDRY, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Margaret M. HECKLER, as Secretary of Health & Human

Services, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 85-3059.

United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit.

Feb. 27, 1986.

Emily W. Lawyer, Tampa, Fla., for plaintiff-appellant.

Haila N.K. Coleman, Regional Atty Office, Health & Human Services, Atlanta, Ga., for defendant-appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida.

Before GODBOLD, Chief Judge, KRAVITCH, Circuit Judge, and SIMPSON, Senior Circuit Judge.

PER CURIAM:

Landry appeals from the district court's judgment affirming the determination of the Secretary that he is not entitled to social security disability benefits because he is able to do light work as defined by 20 C.F.R. Sec. 404.1567(b). Because the factual findings made by the Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) and adopted by the Secretary are supported by substantial evidence in the record and because these findings do not entitle Landry to disability benefits under the appropriate legal standard, we affirm.

Landry worked as a truck driver until February 1982. He asserts that he suffers from disabling pain in his arms and hands that has prevented him from performing substantial gainful employment since February 15, 1982. The following evidence was adduced at the hearing before the ALJ. ¹ In July 1980 Landry began receiving treatment for high blood pressure from Dr. Carduso. Although Dr. Carduso prescribed medication to reduce Landry's blood pressure, his office notes indicate that Landry failed to take his medicine on a regular basis. The doctor told Landry that only by complying with his direction could he lower his blood pressure.

In October 1981 Landry was hospitalized by Dr. Jannoun, claiming to be suffering from acute chest pain, hypertension, and the effects of a myocardial infarction that he had suffered the previous year. He had not been taking any medication when he checked in the hospital. Landry's stay in the hospital was short lived. Ignoring his doctor's advice, he checked out of the hospital after only one day. The diagnosis then made was acute chest pain, etiology undetermined, and hypertensive cardiovascular disease. Approximately four months after this visit Landry quit his job as a truck driver.

The next medical evidence presented was an evaluation performed in February 1983 by Dr. Azmitia, a family practitioner. Landry complained to him of frequent chest and left arm pain that at time lasted for hours and made it impossible to perform any strenuous activity. This pain was relieved at time by nitroglycerin. Dr. Azmitia performed an EKG, which showed evidence of a healed, old, myocardial infarction. There were no ischemic changes. His final diagnosis was hypertensive vascular disease, healed inferior myocardial infarction with a history of angina pectoris, and moderate chronic obstructive lung disease. Dr. Azmitia did not perform a stress test.

The final medical evidence was an evaluation performed by Dr. Murtha. He noted that Landry had a history of myocardial infarction but stated that this could not be documented because Landry had signed himself out of the hospital against medical advice. Dr. Murtha gave Landry a stress test that was terminated secondary to fatigue. Landry did not complain of arm and hand pain during the exercise but did so during the recovery period. Throughout the test Landry's blood pressure responded normally. Dr. Murtha also performed an EKG that revealed evidence of inferior and possibly anterior scars but otherwise was unremarkable. Dr. Murtha's final assessment was:

Atherosclerotic heart disease, status-port inferior wall myocardial infarction by history; atypical history for angina and negative exercise tolerance test to approximately 90 percent of predicted maximal heart rate that lended little credence to the claimant's arm and hand pain coming from coronary insufficiency.

The ALJ made the analysis delineated in 20 C.F.R. Sec. 404.1520. He first found that Landry was not working. He then concluded that Landry does suffer from "severe" pain, but that his impairment does not meet or equal a listed impairment in Appendix 1. He also found that '[t]he claimant's allegations of disability are not supported by the clinical and diagnostic evidence of record." (Finding of Fact # 4). Moving to the next step, he held that Landry's impairment prevented him from doing his previous work as a truck driver. Finally, he denied the claim because he found that Landry could perform light work.

Landry raises two issues on appeal: that the ALJ applied an inappropriate legal standard in assessing his subjective complaints of pain and erred in refusing to let three lay witnesses testify as to the severity of his pain.

I. The appropriate legal standard

Landry argues that the district court erred in affirming the Secretary's rejection of his benefit claim because the Secretary failed to give appropriate weight to his testimony about the level of the pain that he was experiencing. This argument had support in decisions of this court made before the adoption of the Social Security Disability Benefits Reform Act of 1984. Pub.L. No. 98-460, 98 Stat. 1794 (October 9, 1984). We had held that subjective complaints of pain, if credited, standing alone could sustain a finding of disability in some cases. See, e.g., Boyd v. Heckler, 704 F.2d 1207, 1210-11 (11th Cir.1983); Simpson v. Schweiker, 691 F.2d 966, 970 (11th Cir.1982); Smith v. Schweiker, 646 F.2d 1075, 1082 (5th Cir.1981) (Unit A); Gualtney v. Weinberger, 505 F.2d 943 (5th Cir.1974). The 1984 Act, however, established a new and temporary statutory standard for evaluating subjective evidence of pain. Section 3(a)(1) of the Act, 42 U.S.C. Sec. 423(d)(5)(A) provides:

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...