Cordero v. Berryhill
- Laura Swain
- 1:19-cv-00315
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
In Cordero v. Berryhill, Judge Swain denied Cordero’s summary-judgment motion and granted the Commissioner’s motion, leaving the disability-benefits denial in place.
Maria Cordero’s claim for Disability Insurance Benefits was denied, and the Commissioner’s decision remained in place.
What happened
Cordero v. Berryhill concerns Maria Cordero’s request for court review of the Social Security Commissioner’s denial of her application for Disability Insurance Benefits. A magistrate judge recommended denying Cordero’s motion for summary judgment and granting the Commissioner’s motion for judgment on the pleadings.
Cordero objected to the recommendation, challenging the administrative law judge’s assessment of her work capacity, the weight given to her treating physician’s opinion, and the evaluation of her reported symptoms. The court said these objections repeated arguments previously made and that the administrative decision was supported by substantial evidence and contained no legal error.
Judge Laura Taylor Swain found no clear error, adopted the magistrate judge’s report in its entirety, denied Cordero’s motion for summary judgment, and granted the Commissioner’s motion for judgment on the pleadings. The court directed the Clerk to enter judgment and close the case.
The detailed version
- Cordero v. Berryhill · No. 1:19-cv-00315
- Laura Swain
- Dec. 3, 2020
Background
Maria Cordero brought an action under 42 U.S.C. § 405(g) seeking judicial review of the Commissioner of Social Security’s final decision denying her application for Disability Insurance Benefits. Magistrate Judge Barbara Moses issued a Report and Recommendation recommending that the court deny Cordero’s motion for summary judgment and grant the Commissioner’s motion for judgment on the pleadings.
Cordero filed three objections. She argued that the Report and Recommendation wrongly concluded that the Commissioner’s and administrative law judge’s decisions should be affirmed. Her objections challenged the administrative law judge’s residual functional capacity finding, the decision to give little weight to the opinion of treating physician Dr. Bryan Elzholz, M.D., and the assessment of Cordero’s subjective symptoms.
Court’s Analysis
The court explained that specific objections to a magistrate judge’s report receive de novo review, meaning the district judge independently considers the challenged issues. When objections merely repeat earlier arguments or are general or conclusory, the court reviews the report for clear error. The court determined that Cordero’s objections repeated arguments she had already presented to Judge Moses and focused on disagreement with the administrative law judge’s evaluation of the record.
The court found that the administrative law judge’s decision was supported by substantial evidence and free of legal error. It therefore found no clear error in Judge Moses’s analysis or conclusions.
Disposition
Judge Laura Taylor Swain adopted the Report and Recommendation in its entirety. The court denied Cordero’s motion for summary judgment and granted the Commissioner’s motion for judgment on the pleadings. The Order resolved docket entries 12 and 14, directed the Clerk to enter judgment, and directed the Clerk to close the case.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.