Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca5-14-31176/USCOURTS-ca5-14-31176-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Carolyn W. Colvin, Acting Commissioner of Social Security
Appellee
Beulah Davis
Appellant

Document Text:

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT

No. 14-31176

Summary Calendar

BEULAH DAVIS,

Plaintiff-Appellant

v.

CAROLYN W. COLVIN, ACTING COMMISSIONER OF SOCIAL 

SECURITY,

Defendant-Appellee

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Western District of Louisiana

USDC No. 2:11-CV-2015

Before SMITH, WIENER, and ELROD, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM:*

Plaintiff-Appellant Beulah Davis has pursued Social Security disability 

insurance benefits and supplemental security income benefits for more than 

seven years, beginning in December 2007. Her claims were first denied in 

August 2008, then again by the Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) in January 

2010 following an administrative hearing the previous November. After 

* Pursuant to 5TH CIR. R. 47.5, the court has determined that this opinion should not 

be published and is not precedent except under the limited circumstances set forth in 5TH 

CIR. R. 47.5.4.

United States Court of Appeals

Fifth Circuit

FILED

April 9, 2015

Lyle W. Cayce

Clerk

 

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No. 14-31176

Davis’s request for appellate review was denied in September 2011, completing 

the administrative process, she filed the instant suit in the district court to 

appeal the Commissioner’s disposition of her case.

Davis’s action was referred to a Magistrate Judge who painstakingly 

reviewed the medical and legal history of Davis’s claims, carefully analyzed the 

facts and the law, then submitted a 19-page Report and Recommendation in 

July 2013, which concluded: “Substantial evidence of record and relevant legal 

precedent support the ALJ’s decision that plaintiff was not disabled” and 

recommended that the decision of the ALJ be affirmed and Davis’s action be 

dismissed with prejudice. Just over a year later the district court ordered the 

final decision of the Commissioner affirmed and the case dismissed with 

prejudice for the reasons assigned by the Magistrate Judge.

The recommendation of the Magistrate Judge and the district court’s 

adoption of the reasons assigned in the Magistrate Judge’s Report and 

Recommendations turn largely on the standard of review dictated by 42 U.S.C. 

§405(g), which provides that review of the Commissioner’s ultimate decision 

turns on whether it is supported by substantial evidence and is free of legal 

error. “Substantial evidence” is that which is relevant and which a reasonable 

mind might accept as adequate to support a conclusion. It is more than a mere 

scintilla and less than a preponderance. The district court determined that the 

Magistrate Judge’s analysis and conclusion are supported by substantial 

evidence and free of legal error.

The summary of Davis’s argument in her appellate brief takes up some 

four and a half pages to make the single point of which Appellant complains, 

viz, that the ALJ committed reversible error by “cutting off” Davis’s nonattorney representative’s cross-examination of vocational experts for the 

Commissioner, blocking the representative’s reference to Davis’s “mental 

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No. 14-31176

impairment caused limitations” in terms of “moderate” or “marked” and 

forbidding the use of those terms in questioning the vocational expert. This, 

according to Davis, violated due process and is the basis for reversing and 

remanding for additional administrative proceedings.

Like the ALJ and the district court before us, we see that assignment of 

error as another example of Justice Holmes’s reed too slender to support 

reversing the ALJ under the extremely deferential standard of review noted 

above. Agreeing with the Magistrate Judge that substantial evidence supports 

the Commissioner’s determination, and perceiving no abuse of due process in 

the ALJ’s limitation of cross-examination by Davis’s representative, we affirm 

the Judgment of the district court that affirmed the Commissioner and 

dismissed Davis’s action with prejudice.

AFFIRMED.

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Case: 14-31176 Document: 00512999311 Page: 3 Date Filed: 04/09/2015