Moore v. Comm'r of Soc. Sec.

1

TAMMARRA REANNE MOORE, Plaintiff, v. COMMISSIONER OF SOCIAL SECURITY, Defendant.

Civil Action No. 20-1550

United States District Court, W.D. Pennsylvania

November 30, 2021

ORDER

Alan N. Bloch United States District Judge

AND NOW, this 30th day of November 2021, upon consideration of Defendant's Motion for Summary Judgment (Doc. No. 17) filed in the above-captioned matter on June 28, 2021, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that the Motion is DENIED.

AND further, upon consideration of Plaintiff's Motion for Summary Judgment (Doc. No. 15) filed in the above-captioned matter on May 27, 2021, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that Plaintiff's Motion is GRANTED and the matter is remanded to the Commissioner of Social Security (“Commissioner”) for further administrative proceedings pursuant to sentence four of 42 U.S.C. § 405(g).

I. Background

In 2015, Plaintiff applied for disability insurance benefits and supplemental security income pursuant to Titles II and XVI of the Social Security Act (“Act”). (R. 174). When her applications were denied, she sought a hearing before an Administrative Law Judge (“ALJ”), but the ALJ found Plaintiff not disabled. (R. 187). Plaintiff challenged that decision, the Appeals Council remanded the matter, and on October 30, 2019, Plaintiff appeared before another ALJ Paul Kovac, for her second hearing. (R. 19). He likewise found Plaintiff not disabled. (R. 33). Plaintiff asked the Appeals Council to review ALJ Kovac's decision, but the Council declined (R. 1), making his decision the final agency decision. 20 C.F.R. §§ 404.981, 416.1481. Plaintiff sought the Court's review and her and the Commissioner's summary judgment motions are now before the Court.

II. Standard of Review

The Court reviews the Commissioner's findings of fact for substantial evidence and has plenary review as to all legal questions. Hansford v. Astrue, 805 F.Supp.2d 140, 143 (W.D. Pa. 2011) (citing 42 U.S.C. § 405(g); Adorno v. Shalala, 40 F.3d 43, 46 (3d Cir. 1994); Schaudeck v. Comm'r of Soc. Sec. Admin., 181 F.3d 429, 431 (3d Cir. 1999)). The substantial evidence standard is deferential, and the Court may not set the Commissioner's decision aside merely because it would have arrived at a different conclusion. Id. (citing Hartranft v. Apfel, 181 F.3d 358, 360 (3d Cir. 1999)). So long as the decision is supported by “such relevant evidence as a reasonable mind might accept as adequate to support a conclusion, ” the decision stands. Biestek v. Berryhill, 139 S.Ct. 1148, 1154 (2019) (citation omitted).

ALJs employ a “familiar five-step analysis” to determine disability. Hess v. Comm'r Soc. Sec., 931 F.3d 198, 201 (3d Cir. 2019) (citing 20 C.F.R. §§ 404.1520(a)(4), 416.920(a)(4) (2016)). At the first step, the ALJ ensures the claimant is not performing “substantial gainful activity” (“SGA”). Id. (citation omitted). At the second step, the ALJ identifies the claimant's severe, medically determinable impairments. Id. (citation omitted). The claimant must suffer from at least one such impairment for the analysis to continue. Id. If the analysis does continue, the ALJ asks at step three whether the claimant's impairments-individually or combined-meet criteria for certain presumptively disabling impairments that are listed in the regulations. Id. (citations omitted). If not, the evaluation continues and the ALJ must determine the claimant's residual functional capacity (“RFC”) to determine whether it permits the claimant's return to “past relevant work.” Id. (citation omitted). If the claimant cannot return to his or her past relevant work, the ALJ moves to the fifth and final step where he asks whether the claimant's RFC, age, education, and work experience permit adjustment to other work. Id. at 202 (citation omitted). At this final step, the burden is on the Commissioner to “provid[e] evidence that demonstrates that other work exists in significant numbers in the national economy” that the claimant can do given his or her RFC and vocational characteristics. 20 C.F.R. § 404.1560(c)(2).

III. The ALJ's Decision

In this matter, the ALJ found Plaintiff had not engaged in SGA since the alleged onset date and further found that she suffered from five severe, medically determinable impairments.^[1](R. 22). The ALJ determined that, though severe, these impairments were not presumptively disabling either individually or in combination (R. 22), moved on to consider the evidence in the record to formulate Plaintiff's RFC (R. 25-30), and found she could sustain a reduced range of light work. (R. 24). The ALJ articulated various limitations for Plaintiff's light-work RFC, such as limiting her standing to just four hours daily, walking to two hours daily, and specifying that she would require the option to stand for five minutes after twenty-five minutes of sitting, and to sit for five minutes after twenty-five minutes of standing and walking. (R. 24). The ALJ also directed that Plaintiff could only manage occasional interaction with others and excluded from her abilities any tandem or group tasks. (R. 25). Finally, the ALJ limited Plaintiff to low stress environments free from paced work, the demand of keeping up with a machine, or more than occasional changes in the “routine work setting.” (R. 25).

Based on this RFC, the ALJ determined Plaintiff could not return to past work, so he proceeded to the fifth and final inquiry of the five-step evaluation: whether Plaintiff's RFC and vocational characteristics would permit adjustment to other work. (R. 30). He enlisted the assistance of vocational expert, Ms. Kopar, to make this finding. (R. 30-31). Presented with all of Plaintiff's limitations, Ms. Kopar identified four appropriate occupations-addresser, photocopy operator, order caller, and marker-and opined that there were approximately 65, 000 such jobs in the national economy. (R. 31-33, 94-96).^[2] Ms. Kopar also testified to the appropriateness of the “surveillance systems monitor” occupation, but the ALJ did not rely on her testimony to that effect in his decision. (R. 32). Ms. Kopar indicated that her testimony was consistent with the Dictionary of Occupational Titles (“DOT”) except where particularities of Plaintiff's RFC were not addressed in the DOT, e.g., sit/stand options. (R. 32, 96).

At the hearing, Plaintiff asserted a right to file post-hearing evidence to rebut Ms. Kopar's testimony. (R. 81). The ALJ did not agree Plaintiff was entitled to a post-hearing submission of rebuttal evidence, but he agreed to hold the record open. (R. 81-82, 97). To that end, Plaintiff filed her vocational expert's report, which appears in the record at Exhibit 20E (“Heckman Report”). (R. 480-84). In the report, Mr. Heckman presented an occupation-by-occupation critique of Ms. Kopar's testimony. He was particularly critical of Ms. Kopar's reliance on the DOT, which he described as a substantially outdated and therefore unreliable source of job information.^[3] The ALJ considered both Ms. Kopar's testimony and the Heckman Report at step five. (R. 31-33). Considering Mr. Heckman's opinion that the occasional-interaction limitation would preclude all work, the ALJ rejected it. (R. 32). He explained that Mr. Heckman's opinion in that regard was only based on professional experience, whereas Ms. Kopar had confirmed that her testimony was consistent with the DOT. (R. 32). The ALJ also rejected Mr. Heckman's occupation-by-occupation critique of Ms. Kopar's testimony, explaining:

Mr. Heckman's opinion is inconsistent with Ms. Kopar's opinion, which, as established above, is consistent with the DOT. Thus, Mr. Heckman's opinion as to the number of positions available in the national economy for the four positions listed above is equivocal and is against the weight of the evidence. Based on the testimony of Ms. Kopar and the information contained within the DOT, the undersigned concludes that . . . the claimant is capable of making a successful adjustment to other work that exists in significant numbers in the national economy.

(R. 32-33).^[4]

In the alternative, the ALJ appeared to posit that even if he had favored Mr. Heckman's opinion, he would have decided step five in the Commissioner's favor because Mr. Heckman opined there might be as many as several thousand jobs suited to Plaintiff's RFC and vocational characteristics. (R. 32-33). He explained that though Mr. Heckman indicated possibly zero jobs existed for Plaintiff, he also indicated that there were as many as “fewer than 1, 000” jobs per occupation, and that the difference between those two estimates was “not irrelevant.” (R. 32).^[5] Having explained his consideration and rejection of the Heckman Report in favor of Ms. Kopar's testimony, the ALJ found Plaintiff could adjust to other work and, therefore, was not disabled. (R. 33).

IV. Legal Analysis

Plaintiff raises two main challenges to the ALJ's decision. First, she argues that the ALJ's explanation for rejecting the Heckman Report in favor of Ms. Kopar's testimony is insufficient to permit meaningful review, and that therefore the decision is not supported by substantial evidence. She also argues that the ALJ's RFC finding is not supported by substantial evidence because the ALJ failed to appropriately consider the medical opinion evidence, especially the medical opinion from Plaintiff's treating rheumatologist. Though the ALJ's consideration of the medical opinion evidence was adequate, ^[6] the ALJ's consideration of the Heckman Report was too conclusory and speculative for this Court to find the decision is supported by substantial evidence. Accordingly, the Court will order remand for the ALJ to further consider and explain his resolution of the conflicting job-availability evidence in the record.^[7]

ALJs must address and resolve...