Case ID: f-appx_644/html/0749-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Jeff ARTHURS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Carolyn W. COLVIN, Commissioner of Social Security Administration, Defendant-Appellee.
    No. 14-35611.
    United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.
    Submitted March 7, 2016.
    
    Filed March 9, 2016.
    Merrill Schneider, Schneider Kerr Law Offices, Portland, OR, for Plaintiff-Appellant.
    Adrian Lee Brown, Assistant U.S., Ronald K. Silver, DOJ-Usao, Portland, OR, Lars J. Nelson, Assistant Regional Counsel, Social Security Administration, Region VIII Office of the General Counsel, Denver, CO, for Defendant-Appellee.
    Before: THOMAS, Chief Judge, and D.W. NELSON and LEAVY, Circuit Judges.
    
      
       The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision without oral argument. See Fed. R.App. P. 34(a)(2),
    
   MEMORANDUM

Jeff Arthurs appeals the district court’s decision affirming the Commissioner of Social Security’s denial of his application for disability insurance benefits under Title II of the Social Security Act. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. We review de novo, Molina v. Astrue, 674 F.3d 1104, 1110 (9th Cir.2012), anil we affirm.

The administrative law judge (“ALJ”) did not err in according “only limited weight” to the contradicted opinion of Ar-thurs’s treating physician. The ALJ provided a specific and legitimate reason, supported by substantial evidence, by explaining that the physician’s conclusions— that Arthurs would need to miss two or more days of work per month and could not stand for long periods, bend, or reach — were inconsistent with Arthurs’s testimony that soon after the physician issued her opinion, he -worked for seven months in a job that required lorjg days of standing and bending over, loading and unloading machines. See Ghanim v. Colvin, 763 F.3d 1154, 1161 (9th Cir.2014); Valentine v. Comm’r Soc., Sec. Admin., 574 F.3d 685, 692-93 (9th Cir.2009).

Any error in the ALJ’s use of qualitative terms such as “slight” and “moderate” in the residual functional capacity finding was harmless because the the ALJ provided the vocational expert with a more specific explanation of Arthurs’s limitations prior to the vocational expert’s testimony about Arthurs’s ability to perform his past relevant work. See Molina, 674 F.3d at 1115. Any error was also “‘inconsequential to the ultimate nondisability determination.’ ” Id. (quoting Carmickle v. Comm’r, Soc. Sec. Admin., 533 F.3d 1155, 1162 (9th Cir.2008)).

AFFIRMED. 
      
       This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by 9th Cir. R. 36-3.