Daniels v. Saul

Background

Vincent Daniels sought judicial review under 42 U.S.C. §§ 405(g) and 1383(c) of the denial of his application for Disability Insurance Benefits. He alleged disability beginning August 8, 2014. After a hearing, an administrative law judge (ALJ) found that Daniels was not disabled. The ALJ found severe impairments including trigeminal neuralgia, chronic atypical facial pain syndrome, and adjustment disorder with depressed mood. The ALJ determined that Daniels could perform less than the full range of light work, with restrictions on speaking, stress, workplace changes, contact with others, absences, and additional short breaks. The ALJ found that Daniels could not perform his past work but could perform other jobs identified by a vocational expert.

Both sides moved for judgment on the pleadings, asking the court to rule based on the administrative record and written submissions.

Court’s Analysis

The court rejected Daniels’s argument that the ALJ selectively presented the medical evidence. It also held that the ALJ adequately explained why the opinion of Dr. Tanenbaum, Daniels’s treating dentist, was only somewhat persuasive. The ALJ relied on the opinion’s lack of supporting medical findings, Dr. Tanenbaum’s specialty, and inconsistency between the opinion’s estimated absences and Daniels’s work as a part-time lacrosse coach. The court noted that the ALJ included several of Dr. Tanenbaum’s recommended restrictions in the residual functional capacity assessment.

The court held, however, that the ALJ did not adequately explain the decision to reject Dr. Mizrahi’s opinion. Dr. Mizrahi, an internist who had regularly treated Daniels, stated that Daniels experienced daily pain flare-ups, that his pain affected nearly all activities of daily living, and that he would need frequent breaks and miss three to four days of work per week. The ALJ found the opinion unpersuasive because it was inconsistent with Daniels’s work activity, but the court held that the ALJ failed to explain the opinion’s supportability—how the medical source supported the opinion with relevant medical evidence and explanations—as required by the governing regulations.

The court also held that the ALJ did not sufficiently explain why Daniels’s testimony about the intensity and effects of his pain was inconsistent with the medical and other evidence. The ALJ gave a general statement referring to the reasons elsewhere in the decision, but the court found that the decision did not clearly connect the evidence to the rejection of Daniels’s reported symptoms. The court stated that the Commissioner’s arguments supplied an analysis that the ALJ itself had not provided.

The court rejected Daniels’s argument that the ALJ misunderstood the vocational expert’s testimony. The vocational expert had identified jobs for a person who would have one unscheduled absence per month and require two- to three-minute breaks each hour. The expert testified that more than one absence per month and more than five percent of work time off task would eliminate those jobs. The court treated absences and off-task time as separate limitations rather than combined parts of one five-percent limit.

Because the court was ordering further evaluation of Dr. Mizrahi’s opinion and Daniels’s reported symptoms, it found it premature to decide whether the ALJ’s residual functional capacity finding was supported by substantial evidence.

Disposition

The court remanded the case to the Commissioner for further proceedings. It did not order an immediate calculation or payment of benefits, reasoning that the identified errors did not establish that the finding of no disability had no possible supporting basis. The court granted Daniels’s motion for judgment on the pleadings, denied the Commissioner’s cross-motion for judgment on the pleadings, and directed the Clerk to enter judgment.