Caseflicks

Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit • 2014

Treichler v. Commissioner of Social Security Administration

775 F.3d 1090 | 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 24463

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Takeaway

In short, this case requires ALJs to identify the specific symptom testimony they reject and explain why, but it also confirms that inadequate reasoning alone does not justify an immediate award of benefits when material factual conflicts remain.

Background

Allen Treichler was a tree trimmer who suffered major injuries when he fell from a tree in 2004, including fractures to his spine, legs, ankles, and wrist. His fractures generally healed, but his left ankle required fusion. He also experienced chronic pain, neurogenic bladder problems requiring self-catheterization, nighttime urinary incontinence, and alleged occasional fecal incontinence.

Treichler applied for disability insurance benefits in 2007. The medical evidence included evaluations indicating that he could perform work in the sedentary-to-light range, as well as records documenting continuing pain and bladder difficulties. At his 2009 hearing, Treichler testified that pain severely limited his mobility, that he had bad days twice a week, and that he experienced urinary and fecal accidents. A vocational expert testified that an individual with certain unpredictable incontinence problems or frequent work absences could not sustain employment.

The ALJ found that Treichler had several severe impairments but retained the residual functional capacity to perform a restricted range of light work, including work as a document sorter. The ALJ stated in boilerplate that Treichler's symptom statements were not credible insofar as they conflicted with the residual-functional-capacity finding, but did not identify which testimony was discredited or explain why. The district court upheld that adverse credibility determination but remanded because the ALJ had not given germane reasons for implicitly rejecting Treichler's wife's testimony. Treichler appealed, seeking reversal of the credibility ruling and an immediate award of benefits.

Issues

Issue #1

Whether the ALJ gave legally sufficient reasons for rejecting Treichler's testimony about the intensity, persistence, and limiting effects of his pain and other symptoms.

Holding

No. The ALJ's boilerplate credibility statement did not satisfy the requirement to give specific, clear, and convincing reasons for rejecting Treichler's symptom testimony.

Reasoning

Once a claimant produces objective medical evidence of an impairment that could reasonably cause the alleged symptoms, and there is no finding of malingering, an ALJ may reject testimony about symptom severity only by giving specific, clear, and convincing reasons. The ALJ must identify the particular testimony found not credible and explain what evidence undermines it; generalized findings are not enough.

The ALJ found that Treichler's medically determinable impairments could reasonably cause his alleged symptoms and did not find malingering. Yet the ALJ merely stated that Treichler's statements were not credible to the extent they conflicted with the residual-functional-capacity assessment. This standard boilerplate did not identify any particular allegation—such as disabling pain, daytime incontinence, or fecal incontinence—that the ALJ rejected.

The error was not harmless. Although the ALJ summarized medical evidence supporting the RFC, a reviewing court cannot infer that the ALJ rejected particular testimony based on particular medical records. Doing so would require the court to supply the agency's reasoning, rather than review the reasoning the ALJ actually gave. Because the agency's path could not reasonably be discerned, the district court erred in affirming the ALJ's credibility determination.

Issue #2

Whether the court should remand for an immediate award of benefits rather than for further administrative proceedings.

Holding

No. Further proceedings were required because material conflicts and ambiguities in the record left unresolved factual questions about the extent of Treichler's limitations and did not compel a finding of disability.

Reasoning

The ordinary rule after reversible agency error is to remand to the agency for further investigation or explanation. In Social Security cases, a court has discretion to award benefits only in rare circumstances, generally under the Ninth Circuit's credit-as-true framework: the ALJ must have lacked legally sufficient reasons for rejecting evidence; the record must be fully developed with no useful purpose for further proceedings; and, if the rejected evidence were credited, the ALJ would be required to find disability.

Treichler met the first step because the ALJ inadequately explained its rejection of his symptom testimony. But he did not meet the second step. His testimony about regular daytime urinary accidents conflicted with treatment records that repeatedly described difficulty voiding during the day and incontinence chiefly at night. His testimony of fecal incontinence once or twice monthly also conflicted with a pertinent medical record in which he denied fecal incontinence.

The record also contained unresolved questions about pain-related limitations. Treichler testified that debilitating pain left him in bed twice each week, but his treating physician reported that methadone made his life tolerable and that he could perform most activities, even though he continued to have significant pain. These conflicts concern the central factual question of whether his symptoms would prevent sustained work.

A court does not credit testimony as true before deciding whether material issues remain for agency resolution. Otherwise, a reviewing court would disregard conflicting medical evidence merely because the ALJ's explanation was legally inadequate. Here, the conflicts created serious doubt about whether Treichler was disabled within the meaning of the Act, so the proper remedy was a remand to the agency to reassess the evidence and make supported findings.

Dissents

Judge Tashima

Reasoning

Judge Tashima agreed that the ALJ's boilerplate credibility finding was legally deficient, but would have remanded for calculation and payment of benefits. In his view, all three credit-as-true requirements were met: the ALJ lacked legally sufficient reasons, the evidentiary record was complete, and the vocational expert established that Treichler would be disabled if his testimony were credited.

He reasoned that there were no genuinely outstanding issues because the ALJ had before it the relevant medical evidence and had obtained vocational-expert testimony addressing Treichler's claimed limitations. The expert testified that the unpredictable incontinence, catheterization demands, and incapacitating pain described by Treichler would independently prevent substantial gainful employment.

Judge Tashima rejected the majority's reliance on conflicting evidence as a reason for another remand. The credit-as-true rule asks whether the claimant would be disabled if the improperly rejected testimony were accepted, not whether the existing record independently proves that testimony beyond dispute. In his view, the medical record substantially corroborated Treichler's chronic pain, bladder problems, bowel difficulties, and catheter use, and did not create serious doubt about disability.

He also stressed the rule's practical and equitable purpose: it discourages an unfair system in which the Commissioner gets another opportunity to discredit a claimant after failing to justify the initial rejection. Because the record left little doubt that Treichler was disabled if his testimony was properly credited, Judge Tashima would not give the agency a second chance to develop reasons it had failed to provide.