NOT FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

FORREST TROY ERICKSON, 

Plaintiff-Appellant, 

 v. 

ANDREW M. SAUL, Commissioner of 

Social Security, 

Defendant-Appellee.

No. 20-35079 

D.C. No. 3:19-cv-05331-MLP 

MEMORANDUM*

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Western District of Washington

Michelle L. Peterson, Magistrate Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted March 2, 2021

Portland, Oregon

Before: PAEZ and WATFORD, Circuit Judges, and TUNHEIM,** District Judge.

Forrest Erickson appeals from the district court’s order affirming the

administrative law judge’s decision denying his application for Disability 

Insurance and Supplemental Security Income benefits. We reverse and remand for 

* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent 

except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.

** The Honorable John R. Tunheim, Chief United States District Judge 

for the District of Minnesota, sitting by designation.

FILED

MAR 11 2021

MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK

U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
Page 2 of 3

further proceedings.

At the hearing, the vocational expert testified that Erickson could perform 

jobs that exist in significant numbers in the national economy. Specifically, the 

vocational expert testified that Erickson could perform the work of lens inserter 

(25,000 jobs), table worker (11,000 jobs), and masker (5,000 jobs). Erickson

properly challenged the accuracy of the vocational expert’s jobs numbers by 

submitting a post-hearing supplemental brief with accompanying exhibits. See 

Shaibi v. Berryhill, 883 F.3d 1102, 1109 (9th Cir. 2017). The evidence Erickson 

submitted conflicted most notably with the vocational expert’s estimate of the 

number of lens inserter jobs available in the national economy. The expert pegged 

that number at 25,000, but Erickson’s evidence suggested that there were only 

19,199 jobs available nationally in the ophthalmic goods manufacturing industry as 

a whole. Because the lens inserter position comprises just a segment of that larger 

industry, Erickson’s evidence called into doubt the accuracy of the vocational 

expert’s estimate.

The administrative law judge (ALJ) did not adequately resolve this apparent 

conflict in the evidence. The ALJ credited the vocational expert’s testimony with 

respect to the number of lens inserter jobs by referencing a 2017 Bureau of Labor 

Statistics report, which is not part of the administrative record. According to the 

ALJ’s description of the report, it showed merely that there are more than 25,000 
Page 3 of 3

jobs nationally in the ophthalmic goods manufacturing industry as a whole. The 

ALJ did not explain how that figure can be reconciled with the vocational expert’s 

estimate that a single position within that industry produces 25,000 jobs on its own.

Without substantial evidence to support the vocational expert’s 25,000 jobs 

estimate for the lens inserter position, the Commissioner has not carried his burden 

at step five of showing that Erickson can perform work that exists in “significant 

numbers in the national economy.” Tackett v. Apfel, 180 F.3d 1094, 1100 (9th Cir. 

1999) (quotation omitted); see also Gutierrez v. Commissioner of Social Security, 

740 F.3d 519, 529 (9th Cir. 2014). We therefore reverse the district court’s 

judgment with instructions to remand the case to the ALJ for further proceedings 

consistent with this disposition.

REVERSED and REMANDED.