McCruter v. Bowen
| Decision Date | 25 June 1986 |
| Docket Number | No. 85-7575,85-7575 |
| Citation | 791 F.2d 1544 |
| Parties | Ella McCRUTER, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Otis R. BOWEN, Secretary of Health and Human Services, Defendant-Appellee. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit |
George W. Harris, Legal Services Corp. of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, Ala., for plaintiff-appellant.
E.T. Rolison, Jr., Asst. U.S. Atty., Mobile, Ala., David L. Stephens, Atlanta, Ga., for defendant-appellee.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Alabama.
Before KRAVITCH and HATCHETT, Circuit Judges, and DUMBAULD *, Senior District Judge.
This is an ordinary review under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 405(g) of a decision of the Secretary of Health and Human Services denying the application of Ella L. McCruter for disability benefits 1 under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1381 et seq. providing "supplemental security income" (commonly referred to as SSI) for those over 65, blind or disabled, who are eligible under certain indigence tests set forth in Sec. 1382 et seq. Disability, for SSI purposes, is defined by 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1382c(a)(3)(A) as inability "to engage in any substantial gainful activity by reason of any medically determinable physical or mental impairment which can be expected to result in death or which has lasted or can be expected to last for a continuous period of not less than 12 months." 2
The basic issue in the case at bar is thus whether the Secretary's determination that appellant is not disabled is supported by substantial evidence. In that connection, an administrative determination would not be supported by substantial evidence if the evidence merely supported a conclusion based upon a misinterpretation of the governing statute or upon an otherwise legally erroneous standard.
In particular, a determination must be stricken down if it rests upon a regulation issued by the Secretary which as interpreted and applied by the administrative agency operates to deny disability benefits to applicants "who are in fact unable to perform substantial gainful activity" when the intent of the Congress in the applicable legislation was to grant such benefits to such persons. In other words, the Secretary does not have power to establish additional requirements over and above what Congress has specified. This is clearly explained in a recent Fifth Circuit case, Stone v. Heckler, 752 F.2d 1099, 1103-1105 (5th Cir.1985), which cites and follows our own case of Brady v. Heckler, 724 F.2d 914, 920 (11th Cir.1984), where we said
An impairment can be considered as not severe only if it is a slight abnormality which has such a minimal effect on the individual that it would not be expected to interfere with the individual's ability to work, irrespective of age, education, or work experience. Under this definition of non-severe impairment, it is clear that the Secretary's determination that Brady was not suffering from a severe impairment is not supported by substantial evidence.
We hold that the same is true of the administrative determination with respect to McCruter in the case at bar.
To make clear the reasons for our holding it will be helpful to consider the pattern of regulations by the Secretary applicable to processing McCruter's application and the evidence contained in the administrative record.
The SSI regulations are found in 20 CFR (Apr. 1, 1985 ed.) Sec. 416.101 et seq. The disability provisions begin at Sec. 416.905.
As well explained in Stone, supra, 752 F.2d at 1100-1103, the evaluation of disability claims is now made pursuant to Sec. 416.920 3 under a "sequential evaluation process" (sometimes called the "grid") where if a determination is possible at one stage it is not necessary to consider the matters that would be pertinent at the next or subsequent stages.
At the first step in the sequence, an applicant is immediately found not disabled if he is working. The second step mandates that [Sec. 416.920(c) ].
If the claimant's impairment is listed in Appendix 1 of the regulations 5 or is equivalent to an impairment so listed, "we will find you disabled." The next step is to determine residual functional capacity 6 and see if it permits return to the applicant's former work, or if not, to any other type of work available in the national economy. 7 In the latter connection age, education, and work experience is to be considered. 8 In the case of a person "closely approaching advanced age" [50-54], age and limited work experience may seriously affect ability to perform a new kind of work. 9
As explained in Brady, supra, 724 F.2d at 919-920, and in Stone, supra, 752 F.2d at 1104-1105, and in Martin v. Heckler, 748 F.2d 1027, 1032 (5th Cir.1984), the various regulations as revised from time to time, are not significantly different in meaning; and it is clear that in essence they adhere to the statutory criterion of inability to work.
They merely supply a detailed elaboration of common facets of work activity, such as walking, standing, sitting, lifting, and the like. On their face the regulations do not appear to contravene the statutory standards at all.
Nevertheless, it appears as a matter of fact that the Secretary has used the regulations as a means of denying benefits to persons who are in fact "unable to engage in substantial gainful activities." Stone, supra, 752 F.2d at 1104. This is of course impermissible and violates the statute. Likewise it violates the statute to short-cut the procedure prescribed by Congress and make a determination of non-disability by disregarding vocational factors specified in the statute. As well said in Baeder v. Heckler, 768 F.2d 547, 551 (3rd Cir.1985), "Both the statute and the legislative history speak in terms of medical and vocational factors and emphasize the importance of the relation between the two."
In other words, the "severity" of a medically ascertained disability must be measured in terms of its effect upon ability to work, and not simply in terms of deviation from purely medical standards of bodily perfection or normality. For example, suppose a person's job consists in selecting by means of a computer a set of stocks with appropriate price to earnings ratio for inclusion in a market letter to investors. Suppose then that by reason of an automobile accident the financial forecaster has both legs amputated, but can still operate the computer. If medical factors alone are considered, this would certainly be a "severe" impairment; but when vocational factors are taken into account, the victim can still perform the work pertaining to his job and can not be considered as having a "disability" qualifying him for benefits.
The same necessity of considering both physical and economic factors is commanded by the statute, whether the result is favorable to the fisc or to the applicant for benefits. A converse example might be a slight deformity resulting from surgery, which would not be considered as severe in the case of an ordinary person, but which would prove extremely disabling vocationally in the case of a baseball pitcher, a surgeon, or a singer.
Hence it becomes vital, in cases where, as in the case at bar, the ALJ cites and relies upon the regulations, to scrutinize with care his procedure and to examine the evidence, to be sure that we are not confronted with another instance of misuse of the "severity" determination as a means of denying benefits to an applicant who is in fact "unable to engage in substantial gainful activity" where the record evidence in fact demonstrates the existence of a medically established impairment which does in reality result in inability to work.
We are constrained to conclude that the administrative agency here (as in Martin, supra, 748 F.2d at 1033) reached...
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