Haiss v. Berryhill
- Vincent Briccetti
- 7:17-cv-08083
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 7
In Haiss v. Berryhill, Judge Briccetti remanded the disability-benefits case because the ALJ omitted supported mental limitations from the RFC and vocational questions.
Bryan Haiss and the Commissioner of Social Security. The case was sent back to the Social Security Administration for further proceedings concerning the omitted mental limitations; the opinion did not award benefits.
What happened
In Haiss v. Berryhill, Bryan Haiss challenged the Social Security Administration’s handling of his application for disability insurance benefits. The administrative law judge relied heavily on Dr. Bruni’s opinion but did not include all of the identified mental limitations in Haiss’s work-capacity assessment.
The missing limitations included moderate problems with social functioning, working near others without distraction, interacting with the public, and completing a normal workweek without psychologically based interruptions. Those limitations also were not included in the questions asked to a vocational expert, and the administrative law judge did not explain why they were left out.
Judge Briccetti overruled the Commissioner’s objections, adopted the magistrate judge’s recommendation, granted Haiss’s motion for judgment on the pleadings, denied the Commissioner’s motion, and remanded the case for further administrative proceedings. The court did not decide that Haiss was entitled to benefits.
The detailed version
- Haiss v. Berryhill · No. 7:17-cv-08083
- Vincent Briccetti
- Nov. 4, 2019
Background
Bryan Haiss applied for disability insurance benefits and received a hearing before an administrative law judge (ALJ) on November 6, 2015. The ALJ had to determine whether Haiss was disabled under the Social Security Act and, as part of that process, determine his residual functional capacity (RFC)—the work activities he could perform despite his impairments.
The ALJ reviewed medical evidence, including a mental residual functional capacity worksheet prepared by Dr. Bruni, a state medical consultant. The ALJ stated that Dr. Bruni found moderate limitations in social functioning and moderate limitations in Haiss’s ability to work near others without being distracted, interact with the general public, and complete a normal workday and workweek without interruptions from psychological symptoms. The ALJ gave Dr. Bruni’s opinion “great weight.”
The ALJ nevertheless found that Haiss could perform light work with certain physical restrictions and could understand, remember, and carry out simple work and adapt to routine workplace changes. The RFC did not include the mental limitations the ALJ had attributed to Dr. Bruni. The ALJ also did not include those limitations in the hypothetical questions presented to a vocational expert.
Report and Recommendation and Objections
Magistrate Judge Lisa Margaret Smith recommended granting Haiss’s motion for judgment on the pleadings, denying the Commissioner’s cross-motion, and remanding the case to the Social Security Administration for further proceedings. A motion for judgment on the pleadings asks the court to rule based on the existing pleadings and administrative record.
The Commissioner objected, arguing that Magistrate Judge Smith had misread Dr. Bruni’s worksheet and that any failure to include Dr. Bruni’s conclusions in the vocational expert’s hypothetical questions was harmless. Haiss did not submit a response to the objections.
Court’s Analysis
The court reviewed the challenged portions of the recommendation anew because the Commissioner filed timely objections. It also applied the substantial-evidence standard, which asks whether relevant evidence that a reasonable person could accept supports the Commissioner’s decision, while considering the entire record.
The court rejected the Commissioner’s argument concerning Dr. Bruni’s worksheet. It agreed that the ALJ’s decision was contradictory: the ALJ gave Dr. Bruni’s opinion great weight, described the opinion as identifying several moderate limitations, and then failed to include those limitations in the final RFC. The court stated that the ALJ might have had reasons for omitting the limitations, but did not state those reasons. If the ALJ intended to reject the limitations, the ALJ was required on remand to explain that decision fully.
The court also rejected the argument that leaving the limitations out of the vocational expert’s hypothetical questions was harmless error. The court found no error in the magistrate judge’s conclusion that the record did not contain substantial evidence supporting an alleged decision to reject Dr. Bruni’s limitations.
Disposition
Judge Vincent L. Briccetti overruled the Commissioner’s objections and adopted the Report and Recommendation in its entirety. The court granted Haiss’s motion for judgment on the pleadings, denied the Commissioner’s motion for judgment on the pleadings, and remanded the case to the Social Security Administration for further administrative proceedings under 42 U.S.C. § 405(g), sentence four. The clerk was directed to terminate the motions, enter judgment, and close the case. The opinion did not award benefits or decide that Haiss was disabled.
Read the full 7-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.