Varga v. Colvin

• Decision Date: 24 July 2015
• Docket Number: No. 14–2122.,14–2122.
• Citation: 794 F.3d 809
• Parties: Melissa L. VARGA, Plaintiff–Appellant, v. Carolyn W. COLVIN, Acting Commissioner of Social Security, Defendant–Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

794 F.3d 809

Melissa L. VARGA, Plaintiff–Appellant

v.Carolyn W. COLVIN, Acting Commissioner of Social Security, Defendant–Appellee.

No. 14–2122.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Argued Dec. 12, 2014.

Decided July 24, 2015.

Dana Wayne Duncan, Duncan Disability Law, SC, Wisconsin Rapids, WI, for Plaintiff–Appellant.

Eric Truett, Social Security Administration Office of the General Counsel, Region V, Chicago, IL, for Defendant–Appellee.

Before ROVNER, WILLIAMS, and TINDER, Circuit Judges.

Opinion

WILLIAMS, Circuit Judge.

Melissa Varga suffers from a combination of physical and mental impairments

, including post-traumatic stress disorder, endometriosis, major depression, irritable bowel syndrome, and fibromyalgia. As a result, she applied for disability insurance benefits, but an Administrative Law Judge (“ALJ”) denied her application. Varga sought review in the district court, which affirmed the decision of the ALJ. Varga appeals, arguing the ALJ erred by failing to include her mental limitations in the areas of concentration, persistence, and pace in the hypothetical question that he posed to the vocational expert. She contends the flawed hypothetical led the vocational expert and the ALJ to erroneously conclude she was not disabled. We agree that the hypothetical was fatally flawed. We therefore reverse the judgment of the district court and remand to the agency for further proceedings.

I. BACKGROUND

Melissa Varga, who is presently forty-two, applied for disability insurance benefits in July 2006, alleging she had been disabled since December 2005. Prior to this, Varga served in the Army. She received a medical discharge from the military in 1994 because of her severe endometriosis

(a condition which causes pelvic pain). She then worked as a correctional officer, and later an office worker, at the Federal Correctional Institute (FCI) in Oxford, Wisconsin. She left the FCI in 2005 because of her continuing physical and mental impairments. Varga has not worked since March 2006, when her application for disability retirement under the Federal Employees Retirement System was approved.

Between 2005 and 2011, Varga's condition was assessed by an array of medical professionals in connection with her attempts to obtain disability benefits. She was diagnosed with a combination of debilitating conditions, including post-traumatic stress disorder

, endometriosis, major depression, irritable bowel syndrome, and fibromyalgia (a chronic muscle pain disorder). While Varga's medical history is lengthy, we limit our review here to the one medical assessment relevant to her appeal.

In August 2006, Dr. Roger Rattan, a state agency psychological consultant, reviewed Varga's medical records and completed two forms regarding her condition: the Psychiatric Review Technique (PRT) form and the Mental Residual Functional Capacity Assessment (MRFCA) form. On the PRT form, Dr. Rattan noted that Varga had a moderate restriction in activities of daily living, mild difficulties in maintaining social functioning, and—of particular relevance to this appeal—moderate difficulties in maintaining “concentration, persistence, or pace.”

On the MRFCA form, Dr. Rattan attributed similar difficulties to Varga. In Section I of the form,¹ Dr. Rattan checked boxes indicating that Varga was moderately limited in (1) understanding and remembering detailed instructions; (2) carrying out detailed instruction; (3) maintaining attention and concentration for extended periods; (4) completing a normal workweek without interruption from psychologically based symptoms and performing at a consistent pace without an unreasonable number and length of rest periods; (5) accepting instructions and responding appropriately to criticism from supervisors; (6) getting along with coworkers without distracting them or exhibiting behavioral extremes; and (7) responding appropriately to changes in the work setting.

Section III of this MRFCA form (the “Functional Capacity Assessment” section) instructed Dr. Rattan to “Explain your summary conclusions in a narrative form.” Dr. Rattan, however, instead wrote “See EWS” in the space provided. This notation referred to an electronic worksheet, which was lost by the agency. As a result, Dr. Rattan's narrative summary of Varga's mental residual functional capacity, if it ever existed, was not part of the record before the district or this court.

The Social Security Administration (“SSA”) denied both Varga's claim for benefits and her request for reconsideration, so she requested an administrative hearing. In April 2009, Varga appeared for a video hearing before an ALJ, who found Varga not disabled. After the Appeals Council denied Varga's request for review, she filed suit in federal court. In February 2011, the district court reversed and remanded the case to the agency for further proceedings because the ALJ did not analyze opinions from Varga's treating physician and psychologist, and gave inadequate consideration to the disability determination made by the Veterans Administration. The following month, the Appeals Council remanded the case to a new ALJ for further proceedings consistent with the district court's order.

On June 12, 2012, Varga had her second hearing. As part of the hearing, the ALJ formulated a hypothetical question to a vocational expert (“VE”) to assess what jobs Varga could perform. See 20 C.F.R. § 416.960(b)(2) (an ALJ may enlist a VE to “offer expert opinion testimony in response to a hypothetical question” about whether “physical and mental limitations imposed by the claimant's medical impairment(s) can meet the demands of the claimant's previous work”). The ALJ directed the VE to assume an individual with Varga's vocational profile (age, education, and work experience) who was able to perform

simple, routine, or repetitive tasks in a work environment ... free of fast paced production requirements, involving only simple work related decisions with few if any work place [sic] changes and no more than occasional interaction with coworkers or supervisors.

The VE testified that such a person could perform Varga's past work (as an office helper) as she actually performed the job, as well as the jobs of inspector, laundry worker, hand packager, and cashier.

After considering this and other evidence, the ALJ applied the SSA's five-step disability evaluation. See 20 C.F.R. §§ 404.1520, 416.920.² At step one, the ALJ determined that Varga had not engaged in substantial gainful activity since December 2005. At steps two and three, the ALJ found Varga had “moderate difficulties” with “concentration, persistence, or pace.” However, at step three, he concluded that Varga did not have an impairment or combination of impairments that met or medically equaled the criteria of Listing 12.03, which pertains to schizophrenic, paranoid and other severe psychotic disorders

.

Prior to undertaking the fourth and fifth steps, the ALJ was required to make an assessment of Varga's residual functional capacity (“RFC”). 20 C.F.R. § 404.1545(a)(1). This is an assessment of what work-related activities the claimant can perform despite her limitations, which must be assessed based on all the relevant evidence in the record. Id. In the ALJ's RFC assessment, he determined Varga could perform

light work as defined in 20 CFR 404.1567(b) except that the claimant can climb ladders, ropes and scaffolds occasionally. The claimant must avoid all exposure to noise and even moderate exposure to unprotected heights, hazards and the use of moving machinery. The claimant is limited to simple, routine, and repetitive tasks in a work environment free of fast paced production requirements, involving only simple, work-related decisions with few if any work place [sic] changes.

At step four, the ALJ relied on the testimony of the vocational expert that a person with Varga's age, experience, education, and residual functional capacity could perform her past work as an office helper as she actually performed the job. At step five, the ALJ made an alternative finding that a person with Varga's age, experience, education, and residual functional capacity could perform other jobs such as an inspector, laundry worker, or cashier. In light of these findings, the ALJ concluded that Varga had not been disabled between December 2, 2005 and December 31, 2010.

The ALJ's decision became the final decision of the Commissioner when the Appeals Council denied Varga's request for review. See 20 C.F.R. §§ 404.955, 404.981. In October 2012, Varga filed a civil action for judicial review of the Commissioner's final decision. The district court affirmed the Commissioner's decision and this appeal followed.

II. ANALYSIS

We review the district court's affirmance de novo and review directly the ALJ's decision. Yurt v. Colvin, 758 F.3d 850, 856 (7th Cir.2014). Specifically, we need to determine if the ALJ's decision was supported by “substantial evidence,” which we have described as “such relevant evidence as a reasonable mind might accept as adequate to support a conclusion.” Id. An ALJ need not specifically address every piece of evidence, but must provide a “logical bridge” between the evidence and his conclusions. O'Connor–Spinner v. Astrue, 627 F.3d 614, 618 (7th Cir.2010).

Varga presents only one challenge on appeal—that the ALJ's hypothetical question to the vocational expert was flawed because it failed to account for all of her mental limitations—namely, the “moderate difficulties” in the areas of concentration, persistence, and pace that Dr. Rattan (the state agency's psychological consultant) noted in his assessments and which the ALJ attributed to Varga at steps two and three of its sequential analysis.

In this circuit, “both the hypothetical posed to the VE and the ALJ's RFC assessment must incorporate all of the claimant's limitations supported by the medical record.” Yurt, 758 F.3d at 857 ; O'Connor–Spinner, 627 F.3d at 619 (“Our cases, taken together, suggest that the most...