Vanessa C. v. Kijakazi
| Decision Date | 02 September 2021 |
| Docket Number | C.A. 20-363MSM |
| Parties | VANESSA C., Plaintiff, v. KILOLO KIJAKAZI, Acting Commissioner of Social Security, Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Rhode Island |
REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION
Plaintiff Vanessa C. is a high-school educated woman in her twenties[1] who cares for her two children and worked as a pharmacy technician, full-time until her date of alleged onset, July 17, 2018, and part-time until September 23, 2019. On August 23, 2018, she applied for Disability Insurance Benefits (“DIB”) under 42 U.S.C. § 405(g) of the Social Security Act (the “Act”), and Supplemental Security Income (“SSI”) under 42 U.S.C. § 1383(c)(3). Plaintiffs applications alleged disability based on fibromyalgia, bipolar disorder 1 anxiety, depression, panic disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, and binge eating disorder. On December 16, 2019, in reliance on what he found to be the persuasive opinions of a testifying medical expert and two non-examining state-agency expert psychologists, an administrative law judge (“ALJ”) made the Step Two findings that fibromyalgia was not established as a medically determinable impairment and that Plaintiffs mental impairments caused only mild limitations. Proceeding further in the familiar sequential analysis, the ALJ relied on the medical expert to find that Plaintiff suffered from myalgia and headaches severe enough to limit her to sedentary work with a sit/stand option and with other environmental limitations. The ALJ’s resulting residual functional capacity (“RFC”)[2] finding, converted into a hypothetical posed to a testifying vocational expert, led to the ALJ’s conclusion that Plaintiff was not disabled at any relevant time. Following an unsuccessful request for Appeals Council review, the Commissioner of Social Security (“Commissioner”) denied Plaintiffs applications.
Now pending before the Court is Plaintiffs motion for reversal of the decision of the Commissioner; she argues that both the ALJ’s Step Two findings and RFC are tainted, requiring remand. ECF No. 14. Defendant Kilolo Kijakazi (“Defendant”) argues that the ALJ properly applied the law to the substantial evidence of record and that any errors are harmless; he has filed a counter motion for an order affirming the Commissioner’s decision. ECF No. 16. The motions have been referred to me for preliminary review, findings and recommended disposition pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1)(B). Having reviewed the entirety of the record, I find that the ALJ’s findings are consistent with applicable law and sufficiently supported by substantial evidence; the only error is harmless. Accordingly, I recommend that Plaintiffs Motion to Reverse the Decision of the Commissioner (ECF No. 14) be DENIED and Defendant’s Motion to Affirm the Commissioner’s Decision (ECF No. 16) be GRANTED.
The Commissioner’s findings of fact are conclusive if supported by substantial evidence. 42 U.S.C. § 405(g). Substantial evidence is more than a scintilla - that is, the evidence must do more than merely create a suspicion of the existence of a fact and must include such relevant evidence as a reasonable person would accept as adequate to support the conclusion. Ortiz v. Sec’y of Health & Human Servs., 955 F.2d 765, 769 (1st Cir. 1991) (per curiam); Rodriguez v. Sec’y of Health & Human Servs., 647 F.2d 218, 222 (1st Cir. 1981); Brown v. Apfel, 71 F.Supp. 2d 28, 30 (D.R.I. 1999), aff’d 230 F.3d 1347 (1st Cir. 2000) (per curiam). Once the Court concludes that the decision is supported by substantial evidence, the Commissioner must be affirmed, even if the Court would have reached a contrary result as finder of fact. Rodriguez Pagan v. Sec’y of Health & Human Servs., 819 F.2d 1, 3 (1st Cir. 1987) (per curiam); see also Barnes v. Sullivan, 932 F.2d 1356, 1358 (11th Cir. 1991); Lizotte v. Sec’y of Health & Human Servs., 654 F.2d 127, 128-131 (1st Cir. 1981). The determination of substantiality is based upon an evaluation of the record as a whole. Brown, 71 F.Supp. 2d at 30; see also Frustaglia v. Sec’y of Health & Human Servs., 829 F.2d 192, 195 (1st Cir. 1987); Parker v. Bowen, 793 F.2d 1177, 1180 (11th Cir. 1986) (). Thus, the Court’s role in reviewing the Commissioner’s decision is limited. Brown, 71 F.Supp. 2d at 30. The Court does not reinterpret the evidence or otherwise substitute its own judgment for that of the Commissioner. Id. at 30-31 (citing Colon v. Sec’y of Health & Human Servs., 877 F.2d 148, 153 (1st Cir. 1989)). “[T]he resolution of conflicts in the evidence is for the Commissioner, not the courts.” Id. at 31 (citing Richardson v. Perales, 402 U.S. 389, 399 (1971)).
If the Court finds either that the Commissioner’s decision is not supported by substantial evidence, or that the Commissioner incorrectly applied the law relevant to the disability claim, the Court may remand a case to the Commissioner for a rehearing under Sentence Four of 42 U.S.C. § 405(g). Allen v. Colvin, C.A. No. 13-781L, 2015 WL 906000, at *8 (D.R.I. Mar. 3, 2015) (citing Jackson v. Chater, 99 F.3d 1086, 1097-98 (11th Cir.1996)). If the Court finds that a judicial award of benefits would be proper because the proof is overwhelming, or the proof is very strong and there is no contrary evidence, the Court can remand for an award of benefits. Seavey v. Barnhart, 276 F.3d 1, 11 (1st Cir. 2001).
The law defines disability as the inability to do 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 twelve months. 42 U.S.C. § 416(I); 20 C.F.R. § 404.1505.[3] The impairment must be severe, making the claimant unable to do previous work, or any other substantial gainful activity which exists in the national economy. 42 U.S.C. § 423(d)(2); 20 C.F.R. §§ 404.1505-1511.
The ALJ must follow five steps in evaluating a claim of disability. See 20 C.F.R. § 404.1520. First, if a claimant is working at a substantial gainful activity, the claimant is not disabled. 20 C.F.R. § 404.1520(b). Second, if a claimant does not have any impairment or combination of impairments that significantly limit physical or mental ability to do basic work activities, then the claimant does not have a severe impairment and is not disabled. 20 C.F.R. § 404.1520(c). Third, if a claimant’s impairments meet or equal an impairment listed in 20 C.F.R. Part 404, Appendix 1, the claimant is disabled. 20 C.F.R. § 404.1520(d). Fourth, if a claimant’s impairments do not prevent doing past relevant work, the claimant is not disabled. 20 C.F.R. § 404.1520(e)-(f). Fifth, if a claimant’s impairments (considering RFC, age, education and past work) prevent doing other work that exists in the local or national economy, a finding of disabled is warranted. 20 C.F.R. § 404.1520(g). Significantly, the claimant bears the burden of proof at Steps One through Four, but the Commissioner bears the burden at Step Five. Sacilowski v. Saul, 959 F.3d 431, 434 (1st Cir. 2020); Wells v. Barnhart, 267 F.Supp. 2d 138, 144 (D. Mass. 2003) ().
For applications like this one, filed on or after March 27, 2017, the SSA has fundamentally changed how adjudicators assess opinion evidence. The familiar and longstanding requirements – that adjudicators must assign “controlling weight” to a well-supported treating source’s medical opinion that is consistent with other evidence, and, if controlling weight is not given, must state the specific weight that is assigned – are gone. 20 C.F.R. § 404.1520c(a). Instead, adjudicators “will not defer or give any specific evidentiary weight, including controlling weight, to any medical opinion(s) or prior administrative medical finding(s), including those from . . . medical sources.” Id. Rather, an ALJ must consider the persuasiveness of all medical opinions in a claimant’s case record. See 20 C.F.R. § 404.1520c. The most important factors to be considered when the Commissioner evaluates persuasiveness are supportability and consistency; these are usually the only factors the ALJ is required to articulate. 20 C.F.R. § 404.1520c(b)(2); Jones v. Berryhill, 392 F.Supp. 3d 831, 839 (M.D. Tenn. 2019); Gorham v. Saul, Case No. 18-cv-853-SM, 2019 WL 3562689, at *5 (D.N.H. Aug. 6, 2019). Supportability “includes an assessment of the supporting objective medical evidence and other medical evidence, and how consistent the medical opinion or . . . medical finding[] is with other evidence in the claim.” Revisions to Rules Regarding the Evaluation of Medical Evidence, 82 Fed. Reg. 5844, 5859 (Jan. 18, 2017). Other factors that are weighed in light of all of the evidence in the record includes the medical source’s relationship with the claimant and specialization, as well as “other factors” that tend to support or contradict the medical opinion or finding. See 20 C.F.R. § 404.1520c(c)(1)-(5); Revisions to Rules Regarding the Evaluation of Medical Evidence, 82 Fed. Reg. at 5859. In other words, “[a] medical opinion without supporting evidence, or one that is inconsistent with evidence from other sources, [is] not . . . persuasive regardless of who made the medical opinion.” Id. at 5854.
The evaluation of a claim of disability based on mental illness requires use of a psychiatric review technique (“PRT”) that assesses impairment in four work-related broad functional areas: (1) understanding remembering or applying...
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