Ruben A. v. Saul

Background

Ruben A. sought judicial review of the Commissioner of Social Security’s final decision denying his application for Social Security Disability Insurance benefits under Title II of the Social Security Act. He applied on August 1, 2014, alleging disability based on lumbar, thoracic, and cervical degenerative disc disease and osteoarthritis of his wrists and hands. After the Social Security Administration denied the application initially and on reconsideration, Ruben A. testified before an administrative law judge on January 17, 2018. A vocational expert also testified. The Appeals Council denied review on May 2, 2019, making the administrative law judge’s decision the Commissioner’s final decision.

The administrative law judge found that Ruben A. had not engaged in substantial gainful activity since his alleged onset date and had severe impairments involving neck pain, thoracic spondylosis, and chronic lower-back pain. The judge found that he had the residual functional capacity (RFC)—his ability to work despite his impairments—to perform less than the full range of light work. The RFC included lifting and carrying limits, standing and walking for four hours in an eight-hour workday, sitting for six hours, occasional postural activities, and no work around unprotected heights. The judge found that Ruben A. could perform his past relevant work as a booking manager as generally performed and therefore was not disabled. The judge did not reach the next step, which concerns whether a claimant can perform other work in the national economy.

Ruben A. moved for summary judgment or, alternatively, a remand for further administrative proceedings. The Commissioner cross-moved for summary judgment and asked the court to affirm the denial, while also stating that remand for further agency review would be appropriate if the court did not affirm.

Medical-opinion errors

The court found that the administrative law judge improperly disregarded an important part of Dr. Bayne’s examining-physician opinion. Dr. Bayne stated that Ruben A. could sit for four hours during an eight-hour workday with appropriate breaks. The administrative law judge instead found that he could sit for six hours, without addressing the discrepancy or providing the specific and legitimate reasons required by Ninth Circuit precedent for rejecting an examining physician’s opinion. The court found that relying on the opinion of non-examining state-agency physician Dr. Ikawa did not adequately support that decision.

The error was not harmless because the vocational expert’s testimony—the basis for the step-four finding—was based on a hypothetical person who could sit for six hours. The court stated that Dr. Bayne’s four-hour limitation could have changed the vocational expert’s answer because the booking-manager position was classified as sedentary, and sedentary work generally requires sitting for about six hours in an eight-hour workday.

The court also found that the administrative law judge omitted Dr. Ikawa’s manipulative limitations from the RFC description, including limitations involving overhead reaching, handling, and fingering. The judge did include those limitations in the hypothetical presented to the vocational expert, so the court found no error in that description. The court separately found that the judge should have asked the vocational expert for guidance about whether Ruben A.’s ability to stand and walk for four hours should be treated as light or sedentary work. However, the court said this classification issue did not affect the administrative law judge’s ultimate decision because it would have been significant at the unaddressed fifth step.

Evaluation of Ruben A.’s testimony

The court found that the administrative law judge did not give sufficiently specific reasons for rejecting parts of Ruben A.’s testimony about the intensity, persistence, and limiting effects of his symptoms. The judge referred generally to objective medical findings, Ruben A.’s daily activities, and what the judge characterized as routine, conservative, and non-emergency treatment, but did not identify which particular testimony was being rejected or explain how specific activities conflicted with specific statements.

The court also rejected the treatment rationale as insufficient. The administrative law judge acknowledged that Ruben A. had received epidural treatments and physical therapy and that those treatments had helped at first but were no longer effective. The court stated that Ninth Circuit precedent casts doubt on characterizing epidural steroid injections as conservative treatment and found that the judge had not shown that the treatment reduced Ruben A.’s pain enough to undermine his testimony. Because the lack of explanation prevented meaningful review, the court found this error non-harmless.

Past-work classification

The court found that the administrative law judge erred by accepting the vocational expert’s classification of Ruben A.’s past work as a sedentary booking-manager position. Ruben A. described his work as a promoter who traveled to venues, drove to and from them, ensured that productions were ready, and spent approximately 40 percent of his time traveling and 70 percent standing and walking. The court concluded that the vocational expert’s classification focused on the least physically demanding aspects of the work and failed to account for the additional physical demands Ruben A. described.

Ruling and remedy

The court concluded that the administrative law judge committed non-harmless legal errors by disregarding significant aspects of Dr. Bayne’s and Dr. Ikawa’s opinions, rejecting unspecified portions of Ruben A.’s testimony, and accepting the improper past-work classification. Because factual issues remained and further administrative proceedings could resolve the conflicts and ambiguities, the court determined that an immediate award of benefits was not appropriate.

The court REMANDED to the Commissioner for further proceedings consistent with the opinion. It did not decide that Ruben A. was entitled to benefits, and it did not decide how his claim would fare at the fifth step. The order disposed of Docket Nos. 24 and 25.