NOT PRECEDENTIAL

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT

___________

No. 19-3681

___________

SHARON MARIE SMITH,

Appellant

v.

COMMISSIONER SOCIAL SECURITY

____________________________________

On Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Middle District of Pennsylvania

(No. 1-17-cv-01822)

District Judge: Honorable John E Jones III

____________________________________

Submitted under Third Circuit L.A.R. 34.1(a) on June 29, 2020

Before: KRAUSE, PHIPPS, and GREENBERG, Circuit Judges

(Opinion filed: July 10, 2020)

OPINION*

KRAUSE, Circuit Judge.

Sharon Marie Smith challenges the denial of her application for Social Security 

disability benefits. Although Smith makes several challenges to the ALJ’s decision, they 

* This disposition is not an opinion of the full Court and pursuant to I.O.P. 5.7 does 

not constitute binding precedent.
2

all distill to a single point: That decision was not supported by substantial evidence. See 

Biestek v. Berryhill, 139 S. Ct. 1148, 1152 (2019). We disagree and will affirm.

Smith primarily argues that the ALJ erred in discounting Dr Rizvi’s 2014 Residual 

Functioning Capacity (RFC) assessment. We disagree. True, Dr. Rizvi found in 2014 

that Smith could sit, stand, and walk for a combined total of four hours and forty-five

minutes per day, while the ALJ determined in 2016 that Smith could perform these 

activities for six hours per day. But between Dr. Rizvi’s assessment and the ALJ’s

determination, Smith had received chiropractic treatment that resulted in consistent and 

significant improvement to her condition. Smith’s treatment records explain the ALJ’s 

deviation from Dr. Rizvi’s assessment and constitute substantial evidence supporting her

RFC determination.

1

 

Smith next argues that the ALJ improperly minimized her wrist, hand, and finger 

conditions. But Dr. Rizvi’s own assessment fully supports the ALJ’s determination that 

these conditions were non-severe, and the ALJ limited Smith’s lifting and handling 

activities in the RFC determination. 

Finally, Smith argues that the ALJ improperly discredited some of Smith’s 

testimony. We cannot discern which specific portions of Smith’s testimony she believes 

the ALJ failed to address; Smith seems to simply disagree with the conclusions that the 

ALJ drew from the facts elicited in her testimony. To the extent Smith contends that the 

1 Smith’s reliance on Morales v. Apfel, 225 F.3d 310, 320 (3d Cir. 2000), is 

misplaced: The ALJ did not discount the 2014 RFCs based on conflicting reports by 

non-treating physicians but based on Smith’s improvement with treatment post-2014.
3

ALJ simply should have adopted her characterization of her symptoms as severe under 

Mason v. Shalala, 994 F.2d 1058, 1067-68 (3d Cir. 1999), we conclude that the treatment 

records supported the ALJ’s decision to discount that characterization. 

We are sympathetic to Smith’s chronic pain and various ailments and express no 

opinion on whether we would have reached the same conclusion as the ALJ if our review 

were de novo. In this posture, however, our review is limited to assessing whether the 

ALJ’s decision was supported by substantial evidence, and for the reasons we have 

explained, it was. We therefore will affirm.