Zavalin v. Colvin, No. 13-35276 (9th Cir. 2015)
Annotate this CasePlaintiff appealed the district court's affirmance of the Commissioner's denial of Supplemental Security Income (SSI) disability benefits, arguing that the ALJ failed to reconcile an apparent conflict between his residual functional capacity (RFC) and the reasoning requirements of the jobs identified by the ALJ. The ALJ found that plaintiff retains the RFC to perform simple, routine, or repetitive tasks and that plaintiff was not disabled because he is still able to perform two occupations: cashier and surveillance system monitor. These occupations require the ability to perform Level 3 Reasoning on the Department of Labor's General Education Development scale. The court agreed with plaintiff's argument and held that there is an apparent conflict between plaintiff's limitation to simple, routine, or repetitive tasks and the demands of Level 3 Reasoning. The court reversed and remanded for further proceedings because the ALJ failed to reconcile this apparent conflict.
Court Description: Social Security. The panel reversed the district court’s judgment affirming the Social Security Commissioner’s denial of Supplemental Security Income disability benefits, and remanded for further proceedings. The administrative law judge (“ALJ”) found that the claimant retained the residual functional capacity to perform simple, routine, or repetitive tasks; and concluded that the claimant was not disabled because he was able to perform two occupations, cashier and surveillance system monitor, which required the ability to perform Level 3 Reasoning. Level 3 Reasoning on the Department of Labor’s General Education Development scale is defined as the ability to follow written, oral, or diagrammatic instructions and to deal with problems involving several variables from a standardized situation. The panel held that there was an apparent conflict between claimant’s limitation to simple, routine, or repetitive tasks, on the one hand, and the demands of Level 3 Reasoning, on the other hand. The panel further held that because the ALJ failed to recognize this inconsistency, she did not ask the vocational expert to explain why a person with claimant’s limitations could nevertheless meet the demand of Level 3 Reasoning. The panel concluded that the ALJ erred in failing to reconcile this apparent conflict, and that the error was not harmless. ZAVALIN V. COLVIN 3
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