Johnson v. Kijakazi
- Kandis Westmore
- 4:23-cv-00158
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 12
In Johnson v. Kijakazi, Judge Westmore granted Johnson’s summary judgment motion, denied the Commissioner’s cross-motion, and ordered further proceedings.
Ruby Johnson’s disability-benefits claim and the Commissioner’s denial decision; the case must be reconsidered by the administrative law judge.
What happened
In Johnson v. Kijakazi, Ruby Johnson asked the court to review the denial of her Social Security disability benefits. The administrative law judge had found that her testimony about the severity of her symptoms was not fully reliable.
The court found four problems with that decision: the administrative law judge did not adequately consider medical evidence after July 2021, did not properly evaluate medical opinions, relied on Johnson’s receipt of unemployment benefits without knowing the work capacity she had claimed, and misread records about kickboxing and gardening as evidence that she actively pursued those activities.
Judge Kandis Westmore ruled that these errors were not harmless. The court granted Johnson’s motion for summary judgment, denied the defendant’s cross-motion for summary judgment, and sent the case back for further proceedings rather than ordering an immediate award of benefits.
The detailed version
- Johnson v. Kijakazi · No. 4:23-cv-00158
- Kandis Westmore
- Mar. 29, 2024
Background
Ruby Johnson sought judicial review under 42 U.S.C. § 405(g) of the Commissioner’s final decision denying her Title II disability-benefits application. The Social Security Administration denied the application initially and on reconsideration. After a hearing, an administrative law judge (ALJ) denied the application on January 7, 2022, and the Appeals Council denied review.
Johnson moved for summary judgment and requested benefits or, alternatively, further proceedings. The defendant filed a cross-motion for summary judgment. The court reviewed the ALJ’s decision under the standard that permits reversal when the decision contains legal error or is not supported by substantial evidence, meaning relevant evidence that a reasonable person could accept as adequate.
Issue and legal standard
Johnson challenged the ALJ’s finding that her statements about the intensity, persistence, and limiting effects of her symptoms were not fully credible. Because the ALJ found that Johnson’s impairments could reasonably be expected to produce her alleged symptoms, and the opinion identified no affirmative evidence of malingering, the ALJ needed specific, clear, and convincing reasons supported by substantial evidence to reject her testimony.
Reasons the court found inadequate
Medical evidence
The court found that the ALJ considered some medical evidence after January 2021 but appeared not to consider evidence after July 2021. That later evidence showed diagnoses of right-shoulder impingement and left-shoulder adhesive capsulitis, additional medication and injections, and continued treatment for shoulder pain through at least September 2021. The court concluded that this evidence supported Johnson’s assertion that her symptoms continued and undermined the ALJ’s conclusion that all of her conditions had responded to treatment.
Medical opinions
The ALJ relied on assessments by state-agency doctors J. Allen and A. Dipsia, who found that Johnson could perform light work with specified physical limitations. The court found that the ALJ did not adequately address later evidence, including the July 2021 records and opinions of Johnson’s primary-care doctor, Dr. Alana Wright. The ALJ also did not explain how the later evidence affected the persuasiveness of the earlier state-agency assessments or explain why the treating doctors’ opinions were unsupported or inconsistent. The court therefore found error in the ALJ’s evaluation of the medical opinions.
Unemployment benefits
The ALJ relied on Johnson’s receipt of unemployment benefits in 2020 and 2021. The court explained that unemployment benefits can be inconsistent with a claim of inability to work full time when the claimant represented that she was available for full-time work. But the records cited by the ALJ did not show how long or how often Johnson could work, and Johnson testified only that she certified that she was able and available to work. The court found that the unemployment records did not provide a legally sufficient reason to reject her testimony on this record.
Kickboxing and gardening
The ALJ treated kickboxing and gardening as activities inconsistent with Johnson’s reported limitations. The court reviewed the physical-therapy records and found that they described kickboxing as a goal or activity Johnson was unable to perform, rather than showing that she was actively participating in it while her claim was pending. The records also described a goal of returning to working out. The court found that the ALJ had misread those records.
Harmless error and disposition
The court held that the errors were not harmless because the ALJ relied mainly on treatment improvement, the activities, and unemployment benefits in rejecting Johnson’s testimony. The court found it unclear what other substantial evidence supported the adverse credibility finding.
The court granted Johnson’s motion for summary judgment and denied the defendant’s cross-motion for summary judgment. It ordered a remand for further proceedings because the record did not clearly establish that Johnson would have to be found disabled if the evidence were properly evaluated. On remand, the ALJ must reevaluate the evidence consistently with the court’s order.
Read the full 12-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.