Melissa E. v. Bisignano
- Douglas Micko
- 0:24-cv-04438
- U.S. District Court · District of Minnesota
- 15
In Melissa E. v. Bisignano, Judge Micko affirmed the Social Security denial in part but reversed and remanded because the RFC failed to cap combined standing and walking time at six hours per day.
People who have applied for Social Security Supplemental Security Income benefits and whose disability claims were denied, particularly those with physical limitations on standing and walking where the Administrative Law Judge's written findings may not clearly capture combined activity limits testified to by medical experts.
What happened
In Melissa E. v. Frank Bisignano, Commissioner of Social Security Administration (No. 24-cv-4438), a Minnesota woman applied for Supplemental Security Income claiming disability due to severe physical conditions including degenerative disc disease, spinal stenosis, asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, diabetes, and others. A Social Security Administrative Law Judge denied her claim, finding she could still perform certain light-work jobs such as mail clerk, collator operator, and routing clerk. Melissa E. then asked the federal district court to review that denial.
The central dispute on appeal concerned the Administrative Law Judge's written description of what Melissa E. could physically do — her Residual Functional Capacity. The ALJ's medical expert, Dr. Berger, had specifically said that Melissa E.'s combined standing and walking could not exceed six hours total in an eight-hour workday. However, the ALJ's written Residual Functional Capacity separately set a six-hour cap on standing and a four-hour cap on walking, without stating any combined ceiling — suggesting she could theoretically stand and walk for a full workday by alternating between the two. The court also examined whether the ALJ properly evaluated Melissa E.'s reported pain symptoms.
Judge Micko upheld the ALJ's handling of Melissa E.'s subjective pain complaints, finding the ALJ gave adequate reasons supported by evidence in the record, including noting her medication use, her pattern of declining physical therapy, and her daily activities. However, Judge Micko found the Residual Functional Capacity was not supported by substantial evidence because it lacked a clear combined standing-and-walking limit, and that this error was not harmless: the vocational expert's testimony that the identified jobs could be done with only a half-day of standing or walking conflicts with those jobs' Dictionary of Occupational Titles definitions — a conflict the ALJ never resolved. Both Melissa E.'s and the Commissioner's requests for judgment were granted in part and denied in part, and the case was remanded to the Commissioner for further administrative proceedings.
The detailed version
- Melissa E. v. Bisignano · No. 0:24-cv-04438
- Douglas L. Micko
- Mar. 9, 2026
Background
Plaintiff Melissa E. applied for Supplemental Security Income (SSI) — a federal benefits program for people with limited income who are disabled — on April 15, 2021, alleging disability beginning April 12, 2021. The Social Security Administration (SSA) denied her claim initially and on reconsideration. She requested a hearing before an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ), which was held on October 4, 2023.
At the hearing, the ALJ called medical expert Dr. Ken Berger, who testified that Melissa E. suffered from multiple severe physical impairments, including degenerative disc disease of the lumbar spine with moderate spinal stenosis, nerve root impingement, asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, diabetes, hepatitis C, migraines, a history of neck surgery and fusion, and trochanteric bursitis of the hips. Dr. Berger opined she could walk a maximum of roughly two hours at a stretch, no more than four hours total per day, and stand no more than three hours continuously, no more than six hours total per day — but critically stated that "combined walking and standing it would be no more than six hours."
The ALJ also heard from vocational expert Eric Pruitt, who testified that a person with Melissa E.'s limitations could perform three jobs listed in the Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT) — a reference publication used to classify the demands of various occupations: mail clerk (DOT No. 209.687-026), collator operator (DOT No. 208.685-010), and routing clerk (DOT No. 222.687-022). When asked by Melissa E.'s counsel whether those jobs would still be available to someone who could only stand and/or walk a total of four hours per day, Mr. Pruitt answered yes.
On November 16, 2023, the ALJ issued an unfavorable decision. The ALJ recognized numerous severe and non-severe impairments but concluded that Melissa E. retained the Residual Functional Capacity (RFC) — the most a person can still do despite their limitations — to perform light work with many added restrictions. The RFC specified she could stand up to six hours per day (no more than three continuous hours) and walk up to four hours per day (no more than two continuous hours), but did not state any combined cap on standing and walking. The ALJ relied on Mr. Pruitt's testimony to find three representative light-work jobs existed in significant numbers in the national economy that Melissa E. could perform, but did not address or resolve Mr. Pruitt's additional testimony that those jobs could be done with only half a day of combined standing and walking.
Issues on Review
Melissa E. raised two challenges to the ALJ's RFC determination: (1) the ALJ improperly discounted her subjective complaints of pain related to standing and walking; and (2) the RFC, as written, does not reflect any aggregate limit on combined standing and walking, implying she could stand and walk for a full workday by alternating — a conclusion unsupported by any record evidence.
Standard of Review
The court reviews ALJ decisions to determine whether they are supported by substantial evidence in the record as a whole and whether they are infected by legal error. See 42 U.S.C. § 405(g). Substantial evidence means "such relevant evidence as a reasonable mind might accept as adequate to support a conclusion." Biestek v. Berryhill, 139 S. Ct. 1138, 1154 (2019). Even if substantial evidence also supports a contrary outcome, the court will not reverse if substantial evidence supports the ALJ's decision.
Ruling on Subjective Pain Complaints — No Error Found
The court rejected Melissa E.'s first argument. Under the applicable framework — including what courts call the "Polaski factors" (daily activities; duration, frequency, and intensity of pain; precipitating and aggravating factors; medication dosage, effectiveness, and side effects; and functional restrictions) and SSA Social Security Ruling 16-3p — an ALJ must consider these factors but need not explicitly discuss each one. If an ALJ discredits a claimant's testimony and gives good reasons for doing so, courts generally defer to that determination.
The court found the ALJ had adequately addressed Melissa E.'s medication use (noting she reported some relief from gabapentin and topical lidocaine), her pattern of repeatedly declining recommended physical therapy over several years despite multiple providers' recommendations, and her activities of daily living (caring for pets, cooking, cleaning, using the laundromat). The court declined to find error simply because Melissa E. attended physical therapy once near the end of her disability period, characterizing any such reversal as impermissible "nitpicking" of a well-reasoned decision. The court also found no error in the ALJ's treatment of daily activities, noting the ALJ gave good reasons — including inconsistency between Melissa E.'s self-assessment and her providers' observations — and that not all Polaski factors must weigh in the claimant's favor.
Ruling on RFC Combined Standing/Walking Limit — Error Found, Remand Required
The court agreed with Melissa E. on her second argument. Dr. Berger expressly opined that combined standing and walking could not exceed six hours per workday. The ALJ's RFC, however, set separate caps (six hours standing, four hours walking) without any combined ceiling, allowing a reading that Melissa E. could alternate between standing and walking throughout a full eight-hour workday. No record evidence supported that interpretation.
The court rejected each of the Commissioner's three harmlessness arguments:
First, the Commissioner argued the ALJ was not required to adopt Dr. Berger's opinion verbatim. The court acknowledged that is true as a general matter, but found the problem here was unsupported divergence — the Commissioner identified no record evidence that would support the conclusion that Melissa E. could tolerate a full workday of combined standing and walking.
Second, the Commissioner argued the "light work" designation implicitly incorporated Social Security Ruling 83-10's limitation that light work involves standing or walking for up to six hours of a workday. The court rejected this because the ALJ defined "light work" by reference to 20 C.F.R. § 416.967(b), which contains no such standing/walking cap, and SSR 83-10 was never referenced in the RFC.
Third, the Commissioner argued any error was harmless because Mr. Pruitt testified the three representative jobs could be done with only a half-day of combined standing and walking. The court found this argument failed under Eighth Circuit precedent: when a vocational expert's testimony appears to conflict with the Dictionary of Occupational Titles, the ALJ must identify and resolve that conflict before relying on the testimony as substantial evidence. See Stanton v. Comm'r, Soc. Sec. Admin., 899 F.3d 555, 558 (8th Cir. 2018). Here, Mr. Pruitt's opinion that the three DOT jobs were available to someone who could only stand or walk half a workday conflicted with those jobs' DOT descriptions (which are categorized as light work, defined as requiring "a good deal of walking or standing"), and the ALJ never resolved that conflict. As a result, it is unclear from the record whether those jobs would remain available to Melissa E. under a properly limited RFC.
Disposition
Judge Micko granted in part and denied in part both Melissa E.'s and the Commissioner's requests for judgment on the administrative record, and remanded the case to the Commissioner under sentence four of 42 U.S.C. § 405(g) for further administrative proceedings consistent with the order.
Read the full 15-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.