Case ID: f-appx_695/html/0998-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "PER CURIAM.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Thaisheena M. NICHOLSON, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Nancy A. BERRYHILL, Acting Commissioner of Social Security, Defendant-Appellee.
    No. 16-4180
    United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.
    Submitted: August 7, 2017
    Filed: August 18, 2017
    Thaisheena M. Nicholson, Jefferson City, MO, pro se.
    Julia C. Walker, Spec. Asst. U.S. Atty., Kansas City, MO (Tammy Dickinson, U.S. Atty., Lisa A. Thomas, Acting Chief Counsel, Region VII, Soc. Sec. Admin., Kansas City, MO, of counsel, on the brief), for appellee
    Before WOLLMAN, LOKEN, and BENTON, Circuit Judges.
   PER CURIAM.

Thaisheena M. Nicholson appeals the district court’s judgment upholding the decision of the Acting Commissioner of Social Security to deny Nicholson’s application for supplemental security income. Having jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, this court affirms.

The record supports the district court’s conclusion that the administrative law judge (ALJ) did not grant Nicholson’s request to reopen and reconsider the merits of her prior applications for benefits, as the ALJ did in Jelinek v. Heckler, 764 F.2d 507, 508 (8th Cir. 1985). Absent a de facto administrative reopening, this court has no jurisdiction to review the denial of a request to reopen without a hearing. See Califano v. Sanders, 430 U.S. 99, 107-08, 97 S.Ct. 980, 51 L.Ed.2d 192 (1977). Upon de novo review, this court finds the benefits decision is supported by substantial evidence on the record as a whole. See Teague v. Astrue, 638 F.3d 611, 614 (8th Cir. 2011). The ALJ’s credibility findings are entitled to deference because those findings are supported by good reasons and substantial evidence. See Mabry v. Colvin, 815 F.3d 386, 389 (8th Cir. 2016). The ALJ was not required to give controlling weight to the opinions of treating physicians insofar as those opinions were con-clusory, based on subjective complaints, or outside the doctors’ area of expertise. See Julin v. Colvin, 826 F.3d 1082, 1088-89 (8th Cir. 2016); Wildman v. Astrue, 596 F.3d 959, 965-67 (8th Cir. 2010).

The judgment is affirmed. 
      
      . The Honorable Sarah W. Hays, ' United States Magistrate Judge for the Western District of Missouri, to whom the case was referred for final disposition by consent of the parties pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 636(c).