Pruitt v. Colvin, Civil No. 3:15-CV-1286

RALPH PRUITT, Plaintiff, v. CAROLYN W. COLVIN, Commissioner of theSocial Security Administration Defendant.

Civil No. 3:15-CV-1286

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE MIDDLE DISTRICT OF PENNSYLVANIA

May 16, 2016

(Magistrate Judge Carlson)

MEMORANDUM OPINION

I. Introduction.

Social Security appeals entail a process of determining whether a complex array of medical challenges combine to render a claimant disabled. For Administrative Law Judges the method of adjudicating these claims frequently involves the formulation of a residual functional capacity (RFC) for the claimant based upon his or her credibly determined limitations, and then relying upon vocational experts to provide testimony regarding whether a person with these limitations could perform a significant number of jobs in the regional or national economy.

As a guide in this assessment, vocational experts typically rely upon a Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT) developed by the U.S. Department of Labor. While this Dictionary of Occupational Titles provides a detailed description of many jobs in our economy, given the complex nature of the economy, and the complicated set of limitations which individual disability claimants may face, on occasion there are discrepancies between the DOT job descriptions, and the workplace limitations experienced by a specific disability claimant. Where these discrepancies exist, it is the task of the vocational expert and the Social Security Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) to address those discrepancies, and provide a reasoned analysis of the claimant's ability to work which fully considers any such discrepancies and provides a reviewing court with an adequately developed legal and factual basis for reviewing a disability determination that involves a residual functional capacity assessment which does not neatly fall within any of the Dictionary of Occupational Titles job descriptions.

This is a difficult, and often challenging, but vitally important task in those cases where we must reconcile discrepancies between an RFC determination and the DOT standards for the jobs that an Administrative Law Judge finds the claimant could perform. In this case, we are presented with one such challenging case. The plaintiff, Ralph Pruitt, is a laborer whose employment prospects are now severelylimited due to two separate and very different impairments: chronic spinal problems and a profound degree of deafness. While the ALJ recognized that this array of conditions brought Pruitt's case well outside the ordinary parameters of jobs defined by the Dictionary of Occupational Titles, and endeavored to develop the factual record relating to the degree to which Pruitt's deafness impaired his ability to perform the limited set of jobs that Pruitt could still undertake given his severe back ailments, those efforts do not permit a fully informed analysis of this complex question, by either the ALJ or this Court. Therefore, for the reasons set forth below, we will remand this matter for further consideration of this question by the ALJ.

II. BACKGROUND AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

On January 20, 2012, Ralph Pruitt, a 45 year old man with an eleventh grade education and a work history as a truck loader, pizza cook, and laborer, applied for disability insurance benefits and supplemental security income under Titles II and XVI of the Social Security Act due to profound deafness, back problems, and nerve damage to his legs. (Tr. 84-85, 185.) According to Pruitt these ailments had combined to render him disabled as of June 1, 2011.

With respect to Pruitt's hearing deficits, the undisputed medical evidence reveals that Pruitt suffers from a profound, and progressive, deafness which affects both ears. Thus, the medical evidence disclosed that on May 10, 2012, Dr. CarlosRecalde, performed a consultative audiological examination of Pruitt. (Tr. 327.) Dr. Recalde noted that Pruitt began experiencing hearing loss at age 18, and it had worsened over time. (Id.) On examination, Pruitt displayed significant bilateral sensory neural hearing loss with speech audiometry affected due to moderately severe to profound hearing loss. (Id.)

Likewise, on March 13, 2014, audiologist Amy Freed wrote a letter to Pruitt's counsel explaining the results of this speech audiometry test conducted in May 2012. (Tr. 66, 450.) In this report, Dr. Freed explained that a Speech Recognition Threshold (SRT) is the minimum hearing level for speech at which an individual can recognize 50% of speech material. (Tr. 450.) Pruitt's SRT was 70 dB in each ear. (Tr. 450.) A Word Recognition Score (WRS), in turn, is the percentage of an individual's ability to understand one-syllable words at a comfortable listening level. (Id.) In Pruitt's case, he scored 80% in the right ear and 76% in the left ear at 100dB, a volume level that equates to the volume of noise produced by a gas powered lawn mower. Freed opined that if the Word Recognition Score examination was presented at normal conversational levels (40-55 dB), Pruitt would be expected to score 0% in each ear. (Id.) These findings were tantamount to a conclusion that Pruitt is entirely deaf at a normal conversational volume, and would have significant hearing comprehension only if the speech directed at him had a volume equivalent to thesound generated by a gas powered lawn mower, an extraordinarily high volume of sound.

In addition, on July 26, 2012, Michael Murray, M.D., performed a consultative examination of Pruitt which noted that, although Pruitt used hearing aids for a period of time, he no longer believed they were helpful. (Tr. 335.) Dr. Murray also found that Pruitt had difficulty communicating with him orally during the examination, often asking him to speak louder, and recommended that Pruitt undergo a hearing test to determine the extent of his hearing loss. (Tr. 338.)

Finally, on August 7, 2012, as part of the initial disability determination process, Gregory Mortimer, M.D., reviewed Pruitt's medical records and performed an RFC evaluation. (Tr. 66-68.) With respect to Pruitt's hearing, Dr. Mortimer wrote that Pruitt had a history of progressive hearing loss since age 18; noted that an audiogram indicated Pruitt had bilateral sensorineural hearing loss with a right ear average pure tone threshold of 74.6dB, and a left ear average of 73.3dB; and found that Pruitt's word recognition on the right ear is 80% at 100dB, and 76% at 100dB on the left ear. (Tr. 66.) Given these profound hearing deficits, Dr. Mortimer recommended Pruitt avoid "even moderate exposure" to noise at work. (Tr. 68.)

It is against the backdrop of this medical evidence, uncontradicted medical evidence which cautioned against Pruitt's exposure to even a moderate level of noise,that an Administrative Law Judge came to address Pruitt's case at a hearing conducted on December 17, 2013. (Tr. 24-59.) The ALJ conducted this hearing by video-conference and it became immediately apparent that Pruitt's hearing impairments made it impossible for Pruitt to hear or understand the ALJ. (Tr. 28-9.) As a result, Pruitt's counsel, who was present with Pruitt, was compelled to pose questions directly to Pruitt on behalf of the ALJ. (Id.) At the close of the hearing, the ALJ acknowledged Pruitt's total deafness, stating "I'm pretty sure Mr. Pruitt can't hear me." (Tr. 58.)

The ALJ also received testimony from a vocational expert to aid in determining whether Pruitt's back ailments, coupled with his profound hearing loss, precluded productive employment for the plaintiff. (Tr. 51-57.) In the course of the vocational expert's testimony, the ALJ fashion a residual functional capacity for Pruitt that limited him to light work with a sit/stand option every 30 minutes to accommodate his back impairments. (Tr. 52.) The ALJ then detailed Pruitt's "profound" hearing loss, (id.), and asked the vocational expert to assume that Pruitt could hear nothing at a normal conversation level and had only an 80% hearing comprehension when the workplace volume reached 100 decibels, a volume equivalent to a gas powered lawn mower. (Tr. 53.)

In response to this hypothetical the vocational expert testified that "it's anarrow range of jobs that's appropriate" for Pruitt. (Tr. 54.) The vocational expert then identified the jobs of production work assembler, hand bander, sorter or inserter which the vocational expert testified Pruitt could perform, and which existed in significant numbers in the national economy. (Tr. 54.) The ALJ's questioning of this vocational expert recognized that Pruitt's back problems, coupled with his deafness, took this case outside the realm of the normal job descriptions defined by the DOT. Therefore, the ALJ asked if the vocational expert's opinion was consistent with the information in the DOT. In response, the vocational expert candidly acknowledged that her opinions were not entirely in accord with the DOT descriptions and explained why a sit/stand option would be available to Pruitt in the workplace. (Tr. 55.) As for Pruitt's deafness, however, the vocational expert only opined: "the details of the profound hearing loss are another issue. In general, of course the DOT discusses it, but not in detail like that." (Id.)

This aspect of the vocational expert opinion addressing Pruitt's profound hearing loss was problematic on several scores. First, the opinion did not take into account the fact that Dr. Mortimer, the consulting examiner who reviewed Pruitt's medical records, recommended that Pruitt avoid "even moderate exposure" to noise at work. (Tr. 68.) In addition, the vocational expert's suggestion that the DOT did not provide meaningful guidance relating to hearing deficits failed to take intoaccount that the Selected Characteristics of the Occupations Defined in the Dictionary of Occupational Titles, (SCO), does address ambient noise requirements for all of these positions, and indicates that all of the positions identified by the vocational expert entailed work site...