Payne v. Weinberger

• Decision Date: 05 July 1973
• Docket Number: No. 73-1336 Summary Calendar.,73-1336 Summary Calendar.
• Citation: 480 F.2d 1006
• Parties: Larry PAYNE, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Caspar WEINBERGER, Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

480 F.2d 1006 (1973)

Larry PAYNE, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Caspar WEINBERGER, Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 73-1336 Summary Calendar.^*

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

July 5, 1973.

Hugh W. Thistlethwaite, Opelousas, La., for plaintiff-appellant.

Donald E. Walter, U.S. Atty., Shreveport, La., for defendant-appellee.

Before JOHN R. BROWN, Chief Judge, DYER and SIMPSON, Circuit Judges.

JOHN R. BROWN, Chief Judge:

This appeal tests the corectness of the administrative determination that claimant was not disabled on December 31, 1962, when his insured status under the disability provisions of the Social Security Act expired. In evaluating the application of June 9, 1970, the Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare determined that through December 31, 1962 the plaintiff had no impairment or impairments of sufficient significance to have prevented substantial gainful activity for a continuous period of at least one year. In an action brought under § 205(g) of the Social Security Act, 42 U.S.C.A. § 405(g) the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana entered summary judgment in favor of the Secretary. We reverse.

The usual standard applied in these cases is that "... the findings of the Secretary as to any fact, if supported by substantial evidence, shall be conclusive ...". Richardson v. Perales, 1971, 402 U.S. 389, 91 S.Ct. 1420, 28 L.Ed.2d 842; Hart v. Finch, 5 Cir., 1971, 440 F.2d 1340. The review by the Court is not a trial de novo and the function of the Court is not to reweigh the evidence or to substitute its judgment for that of the Secretary. The role of the Court is solely to determine if there is substantial evidence to support the Secretary's decision. Goodman v. Richardson, 5 Cir., 1971, 448 F.2d 388; Richardson v. Richardson, 5 Cir., 1970, 437 F.2d 109; Brown v. Finch, 5 Cir., 1970, 429 F.2d 80; Rome v. Finch, 5 Cir., 1969, 409 F.2d 1329. Resolution of conflicts in the evidence, including conflicting medical opinions and determinations of credibility are not for the courts; such functions are solely within the province of the Secretary. Grant v. Richardson, 5 Cir., 1971, 445 F.2d 656; Martin v. Finch, 5 Cir., 1969, 415 F.2d 793; Stillwell v. Cohen, 5 Cir., 1969, 411 F.2d 574; Hayes v. Celebrezze, 5 Cir., 1963, 311 F.2d 648; Page v. Celebrezze, 5 Cir., 1963, 311 F.2d 757.

Our review of the record in this case, the whole record, leaves us unable to conclude here that the Secretary's decision was so supported by substantial evidence. We are propelled to this conclusion in the main because of a conspicuous absence of credibility choices in existence during the decisional processes which finally culminated in the Secretary's decision. That the claimant was afflicted with severe rheumatoid arthritis and, as such, totally disabled at the time of the bringing of this action and thereafter is undisputed. Neither is it disputed, nor could it be, that claimant's arthritic condition was diagnosed on several occasions prior to the December 31, 1962 expiration of his insured status. Doctor Mims Mitchell, the Perales consultant at the hearing held on July 8, 1971, acknowledged a medical report prepared by Doctor Gremillion on April 6, 1961 which concluded that, at that time, claimant was totally disabled. The hearing examiner's consultant also alluded to a subsequent medical report prepared by Doctor DeBlanc, the claimant's personal physician, which asserted that claimant was treated for his arthritic condition prior to December 31, 1962. The temporal connexity between claimant's physical condition at the time of the 1971 hearing and his pre-1963 condition is weighted not insignificantly by additional undisputed, indeed indisputable, interim treatments for arthritis. It was the admitted judgment of this consultant that the claimant's medical reports were more clinically compatible with progressive rheumatoid arthritis rather than gouty arthritis, as various clinicians had theretofore speculated. Additionally, Doctor Mitchell testified that, in his opinion, it would be correct to state that the rheumatoid arthritis dated back to 1961.

It is...