Freeman v. Bisignano
- Shannon Elkins
- 0:24-cv-02424
- U.S. District Court · District of Minnesota
- 15
In Kaylee F. v. Bisignano, Magistrate Judge Elkins denied Kaylee F.'s motion for summary judgment and affirmed the Social Security Administration's denial of her disability insurance benefits.
People who have applied for Social Security disability insurance benefits and are challenging an administrative law judge's reliance on vocational expert testimony, particularly where the expert-identified jobs have reasoning or sensory requirements that appear to conflict with the claimant's assigned functional capacity.
What happened
In Kaylee F. v. Bisignano (Case No. 24-cv-2424), a Minnesota federal court reviewed the Social Security Administration's denial of disability insurance benefits to Kaylee F., who claimed she was unable to work due to PTSD, depression, anxiety and panic attacks, bone spurs, swelling ankles, memory loss, and fear of men. An administrative law judge had previously found Kaylee F. was not disabled during the relevant period and that jobs existed in significant numbers in the national economy that she could perform, including Marking Clerk, Routing Clerk, and Photo-Copy Machine Operator.
Kaylee F. challenged that decision on two grounds: first, that the jobs identified by the vocational expert required reasoning levels higher than what her assigned functional capacity allowed; and second, that several of those jobs required frequent near vision ability, which she argued conflicted with her documented eye condition — glaucomatous optic atrophy of the left eye. The Commissioner argued the vocational expert's testimony, based on her training and experience, was sufficient to support the administrative law judge's findings.
Magistrate Judge Shannon G. Elkins denied Kaylee F.'s motion for summary judgment, granted the Commissioner's motion for summary judgment, and affirmed the Commissioner's final decision. The court found that the vocational expert's testimony — including her explanation that her professional experience supported conclusions that differed from the Dictionary of Occupational Titles — constituted substantial evidence supporting the administrative law judge's findings. The court also found that the administrative law judge properly excluded vision limitations from the functional capacity assessment because the medical record contained no substantive evidence connecting Kaylee F.'s eye condition to any limitation on her ability to work.
The detailed version
- Freeman v. Bisignano · No. 0:24-cv-02424
- Shannon G. Elkins
- Aug. 29, 2025
Background
Kaylee F. applied for Disability Insurance Benefits (DIB) — a Social Security program that provides financial support to people who worked and paid sufficient Social Security taxes and later became disabled — on January 5, 2022, alleging disability onset on October 4, 2019. Her date last insured (the deadline by which she must have become disabled to qualify) was March 30, 2020. Her alleged impairments included PTSD, depression with anxiety and panic attacks, bone spurs on the right foot, ankle problems, memory loss, and fear of men.
The Social Security Administration denied her claim at the initial and reconsideration levels. An administrative law judge (ALJ) held a hearing on December 9, 2022, at which both Kaylee F. and vocational expert (VE) Pauline Pegram-Wargel testified. On January 5, 2023, the ALJ issued a decision finding Kaylee F. not disabled during the relevant period.
The ALJ's Five-Step Analysis
The ALJ applied the standard five-step sequential evaluation used in Social Security disability determinations:
- Step 1: Whether the claimant engaged in substantial gainful activity — the ALJ found she had not. - Step 2: Whether the claimant had severe medical impairments — the ALJ found she had a long list, including numerous physical conditions, major depressive disorder, panic disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, PTSD, borderline intellectual functioning, borderline personality disorder, ADHD, and glaucomatous optic atrophy of the left eye. - Step 3: Whether any impairment met a listed impairment in severity — the ALJ found none did. - Step 4: The ALJ assessed Kaylee F.'s Residual Functional Capacity (RFC) — the most a claimant can still do despite her limitations. The ALJ found she could perform light work with significant restrictions: no crawling or climbing ladders/ropes/scaffolds, no work in extreme heat or humidity, no work at heights or around moving parts, no production-rate pace work, only occasional interaction with supervisors and coworkers, no interaction with the public, simple tasks and simple work-related decisions, and only occasional adaptation to changes in routine. - Step 5: Whether jobs existed in significant numbers in the national economy the claimant could perform — the ALJ, relying on VE testimony, found three light-work jobs: Marking Clerk, Routing Clerk, and Photo-Copy Machine Operator.
The Appeals Council denied review, making the ALJ's decision the Commissioner's final decision.
Plaintiff's Arguments
Reasoning Level Conflict
Kaylee F. argued that the jobs identified by the VE required reasoning levels exceeding her RFC limitations. The Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT) — a federal publication cataloguing job requirements — assigns Reasoning Levels to each occupation. Levels range from 1 to 6: - Reasoning Level 2 (assigned to Marking Clerk, Routing Clerk, and Photo-Copy Machine Operator): requires applying common sense to carry out "detailed but uninvolved" instructions and dealing with "a few concrete variables." - Reasoning Level 3 (assigned to Document Preparation Clerk): requires carrying out instructions in written, oral, or diagrammatic form and dealing with "several concrete variables."
Kaylee F. argued these requirements were incompatible with an RFC limiting her to "simple tasks" and "simple work-related decisions."
Visual Acuity Conflict
Kaylee F. also argued that Marking Clerk, Routing Clerk, and Sorter required "near frequent acuity" (the ability to see clearly at close range on a frequent basis), which conflicted with her severe impairment of glaucomatous optic atrophy of the left eye. She argued the ALJ failed to account for this impairment in the hypothetical posed to the VE.
The Court's Analysis
Standard of Review
The court's review was limited: it could only overturn the ALJ's decision if it was not supported by substantial evidence or resulted from a legal error. "Substantial evidence" means less than a preponderance but enough that a reasonable mind would find it adequate to support the conclusion. The court may not reverse merely because it would have decided differently or because other substantial evidence could support a different result.
Reasoning Level Conflict — Rejected
The court rejected Kaylee F.'s reasoning-level argument. It explained that DOT definitions are generic maximum job requirements, and the RFC determination (step four) is a separate process from the identification of available jobs (step five). The court held that some incongruence between RFC language and DOT definitions is inherent and expected, and that ALJs have discretion to apply RFCs to DOT descriptions, informed by VE testimony.
The VE testified that the listed jobs were consistent with Kaylee F.'s RFC, acknowledged areas where her testimony diverged from the DOT, and explained that her professional experience — including a master's degree in Rehabilitation Counseling — supported her conclusions. The court held that under these circumstances, the ALJ was entitled to rely on the VE's testimony, and that testimony constituted substantial evidence. The court cited Welsh v. Colvin, 765 F.3d 926, 930 (8th Cir. 2014), for the proposition that a VE's testimony can constitute substantial evidence where the VE explains divergences from DOT definitions based on professional experience.
Visual Acuity Conflict — Rejected
The court also rejected the vision argument. The court noted that Kaylee F. appeared to raise the vision issue for the first time in her federal court brief. While the ALJ listed glaucomatous optic atrophy as a severe impairment, the ALJ also noted that the medical records did not document findings meeting the relevant impairment listing standards. A doctor recommended testing for glaucoma in 2017, but that testing returned no diagnosis. No further records of testing or treatment for vision-related impairment were in the record.
The court emphasized that a severe impairment and a functional limitation are analytically distinct: a person can have a severe impairment that does not limit their ability to work. Because no medical evidence in the record connected the eye condition to any actual limitation on Kaylee F.'s work capacity, the ALJ's decision not to include vision limitations in the RFC was supported by substantial evidence. The court cited Eichelberger v. Barnhart, 390 F.3d 584, 591 (8th Cir. 2004), for the principle that the ALJ's decision not to include limitations in the RFC must be evaluated against the record as a whole.
Disposition
Magistrate Judge Elkins:
- Denied the relief requested in Plaintiff's Brief.
- Granted the relief requested in Defendant's Brief.
- Affirmed the Commissioner's final decision.
Judgment was ordered to be entered accordingly.
Read the full 15-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.