B.Z. v. Kijakazi

Background

B. Z. sought Social Security benefits for a period beginning with the application date of October 10, 2017. An administrative law judge (ALJ) denied the claim. B. Z. moved for summary judgment, and the agency moved to remand for further proceedings. The agency conceded that the ALJ had committed legal error; the remaining issue was whether the court should order an immediate award of benefits or require additional proceedings.

The record included 163 counseling-session notes from clinical counselor Erin Carnahan, evaluations by Dr. Demetry Apostle and Dr. Katherine Wiebe, B. Z.’s testimony, and function reports from B. Z.’s friend and sister. The evidence described severe depression and anxiety, cognitive and attention problems, difficulty interacting with others, problems completing tasks and maintaining a work schedule, and difficulty adapting to stress. The court also noted evidence that B. Z. had been chronically homeless, had limited work history, and lost a packaging job after an altercation with a manager.

ALJ’s Errors

The ALJ rejected the opinions of Carnahan, Apostle, and Wiebe largely because B. Z. reported improvement while taking psychiatric medication from approximately June 2019 through March 2020. The court held that the ALJ overread those treatment notes. Reports of improvement did not establish that B. Z. became able to work, and Carnahan’s contemporaneous treatment notes did not show a period of dramatic improvement and stability. The court also found that the ALJ failed to account for B. Z.’s difficulty maintaining medication compliance and for evidence that the impairments had existed for years.

The court further held that the ALJ selectively relied on B. Z.’s ability to perform limited activities such as yoga, cleaning, cooking, and briefly driving for Uber. Those activities did not meaningfully contradict the evidence of severe limitations. The ALJ also relied on descriptions of B. Z. as cooperative or pleasant, but the court found no true conflict between those observations and the opinions that B. Z. would have serious difficulty interacting with others because of anxiety, distrust, irritability, anger, and fear.

The ALJ credited opinions from Dr. Aparna Dixit, Dr. Norman Zukowsky, and Dr. S. Nair, but the court found those opinions less persuasive. Dixit examined B. Z. before the relevant benefits period, while Zukowsky and Nair reviewed earlier records and offered little explanation. The court concluded that these opinions did not provide substantial evidence for rejecting the more detailed opinions from Carnahan, Apostle, and Wiebe. The court likewise found that the ALJ gave inadequate reasons for discounting B. Z.’s testimony.

Credit-as-True Analysis

The court applied the Ninth Circuit’s credit-as-true rule, which can require an immediate benefits award when the ALJ failed to give legally sufficient reasons for rejecting evidence, the record is fully developed, and crediting the improperly rejected evidence requires a disability finding.

The court found all three requirements satisfied. First, the ALJ had clearly erred by selectively reading the record and improperly rejecting medical opinions and testimony. Second, the record was fully developed: the case had been pending for more than six years, the ALJ had held multiple hearings, and the record contained assessments from at least seven professionals, treatment notes, statements from B. Z., and reports from B. Z.’s friend and sister. Third, if the improperly rejected evidence were credited as true, the ALJ would have to find that B. Z. was disabled throughout the relevant period.

The court also considered whether substance use created serious doubt about the disability finding. The record showed regular marijuana use and later micro-dosing with psilocybin. But the court found no evidence that B. Z. would not be disabled without substance use. Instead, the treating and examining professionals described the substance use as occurring alongside the mental-health conditions and as an effort to cope with or self-medicate those conditions. The court concluded that the record created no serious doubt that B. Z. would remain disabled without substance use.

Disposition

The court granted B. Z.’s motion for summary judgment, reversed the ALJ’s denial of benefits, and remanded the case to the ALJ for a direct award of benefits beginning on October 10, 2017. The opinion did not remand for further proceedings.