Longworth v. Commissioner Social Security

Decision Date04 April 2005
Docket NumberNo. 04-5350.,04-5350.
Citation402 F.3d 591
PartiesCarolyn S. LONGWORTH, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. COMMISSIONER SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION, Defendant-Appellee.
CourtU.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

ON BRIEF: Julie A. Atkins, Atkins Law Office, Harlan, Kentucky, for Appellant. John L. Martin, Office of the General Counsel, Social Security Administration, Chicago, Illinois, for Appellee.

Before: MARTIN and GILMAN, Circuit Judges; COHN, District Judge.*

OPINION

BOYCE F. MARTIN, JR., Circuit Judge.

Carolyn Longworth applied for social security disability benefits on January 20, 2000. In June 2001, the administrative law judge found that she was not disabled within the parameters of the Social Security Act. Longworth appealed to the district court and the district court granted the Commissioner's motion for summary judgment. Longworth appealed, and for the following reasons, we AFFIRM the district court's judgment.

I.

Longworth was born January 20, 1949, and was fifty-one years old at the time she applied for benefits and fifty-two at the time of her hearing before the administrative law judge. She completed high school and certified nursing aide training and worked as a certified nursing aide from 1984 through 1999. In November 1999, Longworth stopped working because she experienced a seizure. Two months later, on January 20, 2000, she applied for disability benefits "due to seizures, depression, heart disease, hypertension, head, neck back and shoulder pain and shortness of breath." Her application was denied both initially and on reconsideration, and she subsequently requested a hearing before an administrative law judge. That hearing took place on March 6, 2001.

Based on Longworth's initial application for disability benefits, the administrative law judge reviewed numerous doctors' reports regarding Longworth's health, including reports on her one and only seizure, heart disease, hypertension, and shortness of breath. The reports demonstrate, and Longworth admitted at her hearing, that medication has adequately controlled all of these claimed ailments and she appears to have abandoned any claim for disability based on them. Thus, her claim for disability benefits is now based on two alleged impairments: (1) shoulder pain and (2) mental impairments. She asserts that the administrative law judge's conclusion that she is not disabled is not supported by substantial evidence, and also raises a claim that a more recent mental health evaluation constitutes new and material evidence of her disability and requires this Court to remand the case for further consideration.

At the hearing before the administrative law judge, Longworth testified that her shoulder pain prevents her from sleeping through the night, that she sometimes shops, goes to church, and spends most of her day lying down and watching television. She also testified that she walks a mile per day for exercise. The administrative law judge found that the "record does support... a finding that the claimant has pain in her shoulders and has reduced her range of motion as well as a decreased range of motion in her lumbar spine." This finding was based on reports from Drs. Wallace and Holloway. Dr. Wallace reported "tenderness in the rotator cuff" and diagnosed Longworth with "Rotator Cuff Syndrome Bilateral 726.10" and "Adhesive Capsulitis 726.01," treated her with injections of "Xylocaine, Marcaine and Celestrone," and "gave her a prescription for therapy to take for two weeks." Dr. Wallace also informed Longworth that if she experienced no improvement, he would refer her to Dr. Holloway, a shoulder specialist.

A referral was ultimately made and Dr. Holloway examined Longworth and reported a "marked limitation of range of motion in both her shoulder[s]. She has only about 60-70 degrees of both active and passive elevation and -30 degrees of external rotation arm to side." Dr. Holloway's "impression" was that Longworth suffers from "[a]dhesive capsulitis or frozen shoulders, bilaterally." Based on this diagnosis, Dr. Holloway recommended that Longworth "may consider a cortisone shot and physical therapy. We will get her into physical therapy working on a stretching program. We discussed that conservative treatment working on range of motion is the best treatment for a frozen shoulder. If her symptoms continue despite this then certainly she may need to consider arthroscopic or manipulation." The record indicates Longworth attended three sessions of physical therapy.

Longworth also claimed disability based on mental impairments, including depression, inability to concentrate, and "borderline intelligence." On March 6, 2000, Longworth underwent a mental health evaluation and a battery of psychological tests were administered to her, including the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-III. Longworth achieved a verbal IQ of 54, a performance IQ of 56 and a full scale IQ of 51. Longworth could name only two presidents of the United States since 1950 and incorrectly answered seven minus three and seventeen minus nine. The evaluators, Alice K. Garland, M.S., and Bruce Seidner, Ph.D., diagnosed Longworth as malingering with regard to her cognitive defects and concluded that the IQ test results were not likely reflective of her true capabilities.

As part of the inquiry into whether Longworth was entitled to benefits, the administrative law judge determined Longworth's residual functioning capacity, defined in the Regulations as the most an individual can still do after considering the effect of the physical and mental limitations that affect the ability to perform work-related tasks. 20 C.F.R. § 404.1545. Considering all the medical evidence, including her alleged shoulder and mental limitations, the administrative law judge concluded that while Longworth would not be able to return to her previous work as a nursing assistant, she was capable of performing "light work" with some limitations. Someone who can perform the full range of light work is not disabled within the Medical Vocational Guidelines, but if a claimant's ability to perform the full range of light work is impeded by any exertional or non-exertional limitations, an impartial vocational expert may be used to determine "whether or not there are a significant number of jobs in the national economy that the claimant can perform given her residual functional capacity and other vocational factors." Id. A vocational expert was utilized, and at the hearing, the administrative law judge posed the following hypothetical question:

Assume I were to restrict the claimant to light, residual functional capacity but light, residual functional capacity would be reduced by the fact that she would need a job that didn't require her to work around heights, moving machinery or in hazardous conditions. She would have postural restrictions which would preclude her from any climbing or balancing and she shouldn't do any more than occasional stooping, crouching, crawling or kneeling. Because of the problems she describes with her shoulders, she should not have work that requires her to do any reaching overhead with either arm and she would also need work that didn't require any heavy grasping with either hand. Because of breathing problems, the claimant would be precluded from work that would expose her to dust, fumes, chemicals and noxious gases and because of the depression that she describes and the difficulties that she's had adjusting to her reduced circumstances, she would have a limited but satisfactory, meaning mild to moderate limitation, in her ability to deal with work stresses, to maintain attention and concentration, to understand, remember and carry out detailed instructions and to demonstrate reliability. Given those restrictions and taking into account the claimant's age, education and prior relevant work experience, are there jobs existing in the general area in which this claimant lives or in the several regions of the country she could perform?

In response, the vocational expert testified that Longworth "would be able to perform the job of a cashier, ticket seller... inspector, checker and examiner and that of a grader and sorter," and that a significant number of those jobs existed. Considering Longworth's age, education, and skills (though non-transferable), the administrative law judge consulted the Medical Vocational Guidelines, specifically Rule 202.14, which direct a finding of "not disabled." Consequently, the administrative law judge concluded that Longworth was capable of adjusting to new employment and therefore was not under a disability within the meaning of the Act.

On appeal, the district court rejected Longworth's disability claims, finding the administrative law judge's decision supported by substantial evidence. The district court also rejected Longworth's claim that a mental health evaluation performed after the administrative hearing constituted new and material evidence and therefore entered an order for summary judgment in favor of the Commissioner. Longworth filed this timely appeal asserting that the Commissioner's decision was not supported by substantial evidence and that we should remand the case for consideration of her 2002 mental health evaluation.

II.

"This Court must affirm the Commissioner's conclusions absent a determination that the Commissioner has failed to apply the correct legal standards or has made findings of fact unsupported by substantial evidence in the record." Warner v. Comm'r of Soc. Sec., 375 F.3d 387, 390 (6th Cir.2004) (quoting Walters v. Comm'r of Soc. Sec., 127 F.3d 525, 528 (6th Cir.1997)). The substantial evidence standard is met if a "reasonable mind might accept the relevant evidence as adequate to support a conclusion." Warner, 375 F.3d at 390 (citing Kirk v. Sec'y of Health & Human Servs., 667 F.2d 524, 535 (6th Cir.1981)) (internal quotation...

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