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Nature of Suit Code: 863
Nature of Suit: Social Security - DIWC/DIWW (405(g))
Cause of Action: 

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FILED 

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT 

United States Co,,rt of Appeals 

T1:mth ch·cnit 

OCT O 4 1991 

ROBERT L. HOECKER 

ROENA M. Clerk 

v . 

LOUIS w. 

EASTOM, ) 

) 

Plaintiff-Appellant, ) 

) 

) 

) 

SULLIVAN, ) 

) 

Defendant-Appellee. ) 

ORDER AND JUDGMENT* 

No. 91-5035 

(D.C. No. 89-C-656-C) 

( N. D. Okla. ) 

Before ANDERSON, BARRETT, and TACHA, Circuit Judges. 

After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel 

has determined unanimously that oral argument would not materially 

assist the determination of this appeal. See Fed. R. App. P. 

34(a); 10th Cir. R. 34.1.9. 

submitted without oral argument. 

The case is therefore ordered 

Claimant appeals from a district court order affirming the 

Secretary's denial of disability insurance benefits. The 

Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) rejected claimant's allegation of 

disability commencing with her October 1986 back surgery, finding 

claimant still capable of gainful employment, and the Appeals 

* This order and judgment has no precedential value and shall 

not be cited, or used by any court within the Tenth Circuit, 

except for purposes of establishing the doctrines of the law of 

the case, res judicata, or collateral estoppel. 10th Cir. R. 

36.3. 

Appellate Case: 91-5035 Document: 010110090761 Date Filed: 10/04/1991 Page: 1 
Council denied claimant's subsequent request for review of the 

ALJ's decision. 

Claimant's disability claim is based on the exertional and 

nonexertional limitations allegedly resulting from a lumbar spine 

injury that occurred in August 1985 and gradually worsened until 

surgery was necessary. The ALJ's determination turned on the 

fifth step of the controlling sequential analysis, i.e., after 

finding that (1) claimant was not gainfully employed, (2) claimant 

suffered from a severe impairment, (3) claimant's impairment did 

meet or equal one of the presumptively disabling impairments 

listed in the regulations (particularly, 20 C.F.R. Chapter III, 

Pt. 404, Subpart P, App. 1, § 1.05C), and (4) claimant was unable 

1 to perform her past relevant work, the ALJ concluded that (5) 

considering the claimant's residual functional capacity (RFC), 

age, education, and work experience, she was able to perform other 

jobs sufficiently available in the economy. See generally Bowen 

v. Yuckert, 482 U.S. 137, 140-42 (1987)(summarizing five-step 

evaluation process); Sorenson v. Bowen, 888 F.2d 706, 710 (10th 

Cir. 1989)(same). Specifically, the ALJ found that the cashier 

positions identified and quantified by the vocational expert at 

claimant's hearing involved activities that did not exceed the 

limitations imposed by claimant's condition and, moreover, 

1 We follow the Appeals Council, as did the district court, in 

dismissing as an inadvertent misstatement the ALJ's finding that 

"claimant's impairments do not prevent the claimant from 

performing her past relevant work," ALJ decision of January 3, 

1989, at 7. Such a finding is unsupported by the evidence, 

contradicted in the body of the ALJ's decision, id. at 6, and 

unnecessary to the disposition reached therein, see id. at 6-7. 

2 

Appellate Case: 91-5035 Document: 010110090761 Date Filed: 10/04/1991 Page: 2 
required skills claimant could transfer from her employment as a 

waitress/cashier in the early to mid 1970's. 

On appeal, claimant contends the Secretary and district court 

erred in deciding she could still meet the demands of regular 

employment. We review that decision "to determine whether the 

[Secretary's] findings are supported by substantial evidence and 

whether the Secretary applied correct legal standards." Pacheco 

v. Sullivan, 931 F.2d 695, 696 (10th Cir. 1991). 

The primary focus of claimant's allegation of disability is 

the pain caused by such basic activities as sitting, standing, and 

walking. The framework for the proper analysis of claimant's 

evidence of pain is set out in Luna v. Bowen, 834 F.2d 161 (10th 

Cir. 1987). To summarize, we must determine (1) whether claimant 

established a pain-producing impairment by objective medical 

evidence; (2) if so, whether there is some "loose nexus" between 

the proven impairment and claimant's subjective allegations of 

pain; and (3) if so, whether, considering all the evidence, both 

objective and subjective, claimant's pain is in fact disabling. 

Id. at 163-64. There is no real dispute that claimant's back 

condition is an impairment capable of producing pain and that it 

could potentially result in the kind of pain alleged. Cf. 

Williams v. Bowen, 844 F.2d 748, 753-54 (10th Cir. 1988)(surnrnarily 

holding that claimant with degenerative disc disease necessitating 

surgical intervention satisfied first two steps in Luna analysis). 

The crux of the matter is therefore whether substantial evidence 

exists to support the ALJ's finding that, contrary to claimant's 

own account of pain promptly resulting from the simplest physical 

3 

Appellate Case: 91-5035 Document: 010110090761 Date Filed: 10/04/1991 Page: 3 
effort, claimant could perform the work-related activities 

required by the sedentary positions the 

identified. 

vocational expert 

Claimant was given full opportunity to describe her pain and 

related physical limitations at the hearing before the ALJ. She 

testified that she has pain in her lower back and left leg that is 

discomforting when she sits, stands, walks, and does housework. 

Appendix to Appellant's Brief (App.) Vol. II at 52-53. As a 

result, claimant stated she is able to sit for no longer than five 

to seven minutes, cannot stand for more than five to seven minutes 

without sitting down to rest, and can only walk for an eighth of a 

mile before she must rest reclined for thirty to forty minutes. 

App. Vol. II at 53-55. She described the pain as a "constant 

dull" ache that does not vary with movement or change in position 

and never becomes a sharp shooting pain. Id. at 52-53. 

In addressing the severity of alleged pain, the ALJ should 

consider all relevant factors, objective and subjective, including 

the nature and level of medication taken, the claimant's efforts 

to obtain relief, frequency of medical contacts, nature of the 

claimant's daily activities, subjective measures of credibility 

peculiarly within the judgment of the ALJ, motivation and 

relationships of witnesses to the claimant, and consistency of 

nonmedical testimony with objective medical evidence. See Huston 

v. Bowen, 838 F.2d 1125, 1132-33 (10th Cir. 1988); Luna, 834 F.2d 

at 165-66. The ALJ's decision reflects a thorough evaluation of 

the evidence in light of these factors. As the ALJ noted, 

claimant relies on Excedrin for pain relief; she takes no 

4 

Appellate Case: 91-5035 Document: 010110090761 Date Filed: 10/04/1991 Page: 4 
prescription medication for the pain and muscle spasms that 

allegedly disable her. Moreover, the ALJ correctly observed that 

the medical records, none of which contain any specific findings 

or recommendations by a physician regarding claimant's critical 

sitting and standing limitations, 2 do not reflect the postural and 

mobility restrictions asserted by claimant. Indeed, the medical 

records indicate that daily walks of several miles over two 

hour-long spans were advised for claimant, who reportedly was 

walking three miles per day when last seen by her treating 

physician, Dr. O.R. Nunley, in September 1987. Furthermore, as 

the ALJ noted, claimant does not require or rely on a cane, 

crutch, or walker to aid her mobility and provide support. 

We recognize that Dr. Nunley related in a letter addressed to 

claimant's counsel a month before the hearing in June 1988 that he 

"did not believe she will ever be able to return to her employment 

nor. is [she] a candidate for any type of retraining." App. 

Vol. II at 171. Two separate considerations diminish the 

significance of this opinion. First of all, it is not, strictly 

speaking, inconsistent with the ALJ's finding that claimant could 

perform the sedentary cashier positions discussed by the 

vocational expert. Those positions do not involve the physical 

demands of claimant's prior work, nor is there any evidence that 

2 Only one reference to such limitations appears in the medical 

record at all--where an examining physician, neither claimant's 

treating physician nor surgeon, relates claimant's own, somewhat 

inconsistent, complaint that "[h]er symptoms are increased with 

sitting for more than thirty minutes and standing for more than 

ten minutes." July 24, 1987 report of Dr. Stephen Gilliland of 

Chronic Pain Associates, Inc., App. Vol. II at 149. 

5 

Appellate Case: 91-5035 Document: 010110090761 Date Filed: 10/04/1991 Page: 5 
they would require retraining on the part of claimant. 3 Secondly, 

as the district court emphasized, Dr. Nunley's pessimistic view of 

claimant's employability was expressed some eight months after his 

last examination of claimant and conflicted with his own earlier 

opinion, formed when he was seeing claimant regularly, that she 

was "still capable of being employed maybe in a lighter duty 

status work." App. Vol. II at 154. Moreover, Dr. Anthony 

Billings, claimant's surgeon, who also stated he felt claimant 

could not return to her former occupation, see id. at 147 (report 

dated May 6, 1987); but see id. at 143 (report of April 28, 1987, 

stating "I think she probably could return to work."), never said 

anything about other, less rigorous work, and, in fact, found 

claimant had suffered only a 9% total physical impairment, see id. 

at 147. Under the circumstances, Dr. Nunley's unfavorable opinion 

regarding claimant's employment potential did not constrain the 

ALJ to find claimant disabled. See Eggleston v. Bowen, 851 F.2d 

1244, 1247 (10th Cir. 1988). 

Claimant also argues that, used properly as a framework for 

assessing her largely nonexertional impairment, the 

medical-vocational guidelines, specifically 20 C.F.R. Ch. III, Pt. 

3 We agree with claimant that the cashier positions as 

described by the vocational expert do not entail any particular 

skills she must transfer from the waitress/cashier work she did 

many years ago in her own restaurant. A host of authorities 

recognize that the basic physical functions and mental aptitudes 

evidently involved here do not constitute transferable "skills," 

as that term is used in the social security context. See, e.g., 

Frey v. Bowen, 816 F.2d 508, 517-18 (10th Cir. 1987); Paulson v. 

Bowen, 836 F.2d 1249, 1251-52 (9th Cir. 1988) and numerous cases 

cited therein. However, for the same reason, these cashier 

positions would also not require the retraining Dr. Nunley ruled 

out. 

6 

Appellate Case: 91-5035 Document: 010110090761 Date Filed: 10/04/1991 Page: 6 
404, Subpt. P, App. 2, Table 1, Rule 201.14 (indicating finding of 

disability for claimant closely approaching advanced age with 

sedentary RFC, high school education, and no transferable skills), 

lend support to her disability claim in light of the absence of 

true transferable skills. See supra at 6, n.3. Whatever the 

merits of this argument, which we note assumes a fact (i.e., a 

particular RFC limitation) never found by the ALJ, it was not 

raised below and, therefore, will not be considered for the first 

time on this appeal. See Channel v. Heckler, 747 F.2d 577, 579 

n.2 (10th Cir. 1984). Accord Gonzalez v. Sullivan, 914 F.2d 1197, 

1202 (9th Cir. 1990). 

On the basis of the evidence and legal principles discussed 

above, we conclude that substantial evidence exists in the record 

to support the determination that claimant is not disabled. The 

judgment of the United States District Court for the Northern 

District of Oklahoma is, accordingly, AFFIRMED. 

Entered for the Court 

James E. Barrett 

Senior Circuit Judge 

7 

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