UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 18-1076

WILLIAM PERRY,

Plaintiff - Appellant,

v.

NANCY A. BERRYHILL, Acting Commissioner of Social Security,

Defendant - Appellee,

and

CAROLYN COLVIN, Commissioner of the Social Security Administration,

Defendant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, at 

Alexandria. Claude M. Hilton, Senior District Judge. (1:17-cv-00132-CMH-IDD)

Argued: December 12, 2018 Decided: March 8, 2019

Before AGEE, DIAZ, and HARRIS, Circuit Judges.

Vacated and remanded by unpublished opinion. Judge Harris wrote the opinion, in which 

Judge Agee and Judge Diaz joined. 

ARGUED: Christine P. Benagh, COLLIER~BENAGH LAW, P.L.L.C., Washington, 

D.C., for Appellant. Kimere Jane Kimball, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES 

ATTORNEY, Alexandria, Virginia, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Douglas K.W. Landau, 

ABRAMS & LANDAU LTD., Herndon, Virginia, for Appellant. G. Zachary 
2

Terwilliger, United States Attorney, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, 

Alexandria, Virginia; Nora Koch, Regional Chief Counsel, Victor Pane, Supervisory 

Attorney, Maija DiDomenico, Assistant Regional Counsel, Office of the General 

Counsel, SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for 

Appellee.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
3

PAMELA HARRIS, Circuit Judge:

William Tyrone Perry appeals the denial of his applications for disability 

insurance benefits and supplemental security income under the Social Security Act. An 

Administrative Law Judge denied Perry’s applications in part because she determined 

that Perry could perform work in a “non-production oriented work setting.” But that 

phrase has no established regulatory definition, and the judge did not explain it. As a 

result, we cannot assess whether a limitation to “non-production oriented work setting[s]” 

properly accounts for Perry’s impairments, and we therefore vacate and remand for 

further administrative proceedings.

I.

In 2012, William Tyrone Perry suffered a stroke, leaving him with speech, 

memory, and concentration problems; seizures and hand tremors; vision impairment; and 

elevated blood pressure. Based on those impairments, Perry applied to the Social 

Security Administration for disability insurance benefits and supplemental security 

income. 

An Administrative Law Judge (“ALJ”) denied Perry’s applications because she 

found that Perry was not “disabled” within the meaning of the Social Security Act. An 

individual is “disabled” under the Act if he is unable “to engage in any substantial gainful 

activity by reason of any medically determinable physical or mental impairment which 

can be expected to result in death or which has lasted or can be expected to last for a 

continuous period of not less than 12 months.” 42 U.S.C. § 423(d)(1)(A) (defining 
4

disability for purposes of disability insurance benefits); see also id. § 1382c(a)(3)(A) 

(adopting same definition for purposes of supplemental security income). 

To determine whether an individual qualifies as “disabled” under this definition, 

ALJs use the “five-step sequential evaluation process” outlined in the Social Security 

Administration’s regulations. 20 C.F.R. §§ 404.1520(a)(4), 416.920(a)(4). The first 

three steps ask “(1) whether the claimant is working; (2) if not, whether she has a severe 

impairment; and (3) if she does, whether the impairment meets or equals a listed 

impairment,” so that it may be treated as categorically disabling. Patterson v. Comm’r of 

Soc. Sec. Admin., 846 F.3d 656, 659 (4th Cir. 2017) (internal quotation marks omitted).

If the claimant satisfies all three of these steps, then he qualifies as “disabled.” Id. 

But if – as here – the claimant satisfies steps one and two, but not step three, then 

the ALJ continues the analysis, and assesses the claimant’s residual functional capacity –

that is, “the most [the] claimant can still do despite all of [his] medically determinable 

impairments.” Woods v. Berryhill, 888 F.3d 686, 689 (4th Cir. 2018) (internal quotation 

marks omitted). The ALJ then proceeds to step four to consider whether, in light of that 

residual functional capacity, the claimant can perform his past relevant work. See id. If 

the claimant cannot, then the ALJ moves to the fifth and final step, and determines 

whether the claimant’s residual functional capacity allows him to “perform[] other work 

. . . that exists in significant numbers in the national economy.” Id. (internal quotation 

marks omitted). Only if the answer to this question also is “no” will the claimant qualify 

as “disabled” under step five. See id.
5

Here, at steps one and two, the ALJ determined that Perry was not employed and 

that he suffered from severe physical and mental impairments. But because those 

impairments did not match the impairments listed in the regulations, the ALJ could not 

find conclusively that Perry was disabled after step three. At that point, the ALJ properly 

moved on to assess Perry’s residual functional capacity.

Through that assessment, the ALJ determined that Perry’s physical and mental 

capacity both were limited as a result of his stroke. Of particular relevance here are 

Perry’s mental limitations: Perry, the ALJ concluded, had the mental capacity to perform

only “unskilled work” in a “non-production oriented work setting.” A.R. 36. The ALJ 

did not explain what she meant by “non-production oriented work setting,” nor how that 

limitation addressed Perry’s mental impairments. 

Based on this residual functional capacity assessment, the ALJ concluded under 

step four that Perry was unable to perform his prior work as a plumber, and so moved to 

the fifth and final step of the process. To inform her analysis under step five, the ALJ 

asked a vocational expert whether there were jobs in the national economy that an 

individual could perform if that individual were capable of unskilled work in a nonproduction oriented work setting. The vocational expert testified that there were three 

such jobs: mail clerk, garment sorter, and price marker. Based on that testimony, the 

ALJ determined that Perry could perform other work that existed in the national 

economy, and so concluded that he was not disabled within the meaning of the Social 

Security Act. Accordingly, the ALJ denied Perry’s applications for benefits. 
6

Perry sought review in the district court, alleging numerous errors in the ALJ’s 

analysis. The Social Security Commissioner defended the ALJ’s decision, and both 

parties moved for summary judgment based on the administrative record. The magistrate 

judge agreed with the Social Security Commissioner, and recommended that the district 

court grant the Commissioner’s summary judgment motion. The district court adopted 

that recommendation, and entered judgment on behalf of the Commissioner. This timely 

appeal followed. 

II.

We review de novo a district court’s decision on a motion for summary judgment. 

Woods, 888 F.3d at 691. “We will affirm the Social Security Administration’s disability 

determination when an ALJ has applied correct legal standards and the ALJ’s factual 

findings are supported by substantial evidence.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). 

A.

We begin with Perry’s challenge to the ALJ’s residual functional capacity

assessment. According to Perry, the ALJ erred in conducting that assessment, in part

because she failed to adequately explain how she arrived at her conclusions. Because we 

agree with Perry that the ALJ’s residual functional capacity assessment is “lacking in the 

analysis needed for us to review meaningfully [her] conclusions,” Mascio v. Colvin, 780 

F.3d 632, 636–37 (4th Cir. 2015), we vacate and remand for further proceedings. 

For this court to meaningfully review an ALJ’s residual functional capacity 

assessment, the ALJ “must include a narrative discussion describing how the evidence 
7

supports each conclusion.” Id. at 636 (quoting Social Security Ruling 96-8p, 61 Fed. 

Reg. 34,474, 34,478 (July 2, 1996)). The ALJ, in other words, “must both identify 

evidence that supports his conclusion and build an accurate and logical bridge from [that] 

evidence to his conclusion.” Woods, 888 F.3d at 694 (emphases and alteration in

original) (internal quotation marks omitted). Otherwise, “we are left to guess about how 

the ALJ arrived at his conclusions” and, as a result, cannot meaningfully review them. 

Mascio, 780 F.3d at 637. 

Here, the ALJ found that Perry’s ongoing mental impairments limited his residual

functional capacity in two ways: Perry could perform only “unskilled work,” and that 

work could occur only in a “non-production oriented work setting.” A.R. 36. “Unskilled 

work” is a term of art that is defined in the regulations. See 20 C.F.R. §§ 404.1568(a),

416.968(a). But no analogous regulatory definition exists for the “non-production 

oriented work setting” specified by the ALJ, or for any other similar term. Nor, as we 

recently recognized, are such descriptions commonly used in our case law or otherwise 

self-explanatory. Thomas v. Berryhill, __ F.3d __, 2019 WL 193948, at *3 (4th Cir. 

2019) (ALJ erred by failing to explain meaning of restriction to jobs that do not require 

“a production rate or demand schedule”). And finally, the ALJ offered no explanation of 

her own for what she meant when she used the phrase “non-production oriented work 

setting” in assessing Perry’s residual functional capacity. As a result, we “remain 

uncertain as to what the ALJ intended,” Mascio, 780 F.3d at 637, and cannot 

meaningfully assess whether there is a “logical bridge” between the evidence in the 

record and the ALJ’s conclusion, Woods, 888 F.3d at 694.
8

The missing explanation in this case is particularly important because it is 

undisputed that Perry’s stroke left him with limitations in concentration, persistence, and 

pace. And those limitations, as we have held, are not accounted for adequately by the 

portion of the ALJ’s assessment that restricts Perry to “unskilled work.” See Mascio, 780 

F.3d at 638 (“[A]n ALJ does not account for a claimant’s limitations in concentration, 

persistence, and pace by restricting [the claimant] to simple, routine tasks or unskilled 

work.” (internal quotation marks omitted)). If those limitations are addressed at all, that 

is, then it must be through the ALJ’s reference to a “non-production oriented work 

setting.” But, again, we do not know what the ALJ intended when she used that phrase. 

As a result, it is difficult, if not impossible, to evaluate whether restricting Perry to a 

“non-production oriented work setting” properly accounted for Perry’s well-documented 

limitations in concentration, persistence, and pace. See Thomas, 2019 WL 193948, at *3

(ALJ’s failure to explain meaning of restriction to jobs not requiring “a production rate or 

demand schedule” made it “difficult, if not impossible,” to determine whether that 

restriction was supported by substantial evidence); see also Varga v. Colvin, 794 F.3d 

809, 815 (7th Cir. 2015) (ALJ’s failure to define “fast paced production” made it 

impossible to “assess whether a person with [the claimant’s] limitations could maintain 

the pace proposed”).

1

 1 We note that in Sizemore v. Berryhill, 878 F.3d 72, 80-81 (4th Cir. 2017), we 

found that an ALJ had adequately explained a residual functional capacity assessment 

that restricted the claimant, in part, to “non-production jobs.” But in contrast to this case 

and to Thomas, the ALJ in Sizemore provided additional context, explaining that the 

claimant could perform work only in a “low stress” setting, without any “fast-paced 

(Continued)
9

Because the ALJ’s failure to explain the meaning of “non-production oriented 

work setting” requires us “to guess about how [she] arrived at [her] conclusions” and 

leaves us “uncertain as to what [she] intended,” we conclude that her assessment is

“lacking in the analysis needed for us to review meaningfully [her] conclusions,” Mascio, 

780 F.3d at 636–37. Accordingly, we vacate and remand. In so doing, we express no 

opinion as to whether the ALJ’s residual functional capacity assessment was correct; we 

ask simply that the ALJ give us a “clearer window into her reasoning,” Thomas, 2019 

WL 193948, at *4.

2

B.

Perry raises several other challenges to the ALJ’s decision. Having carefully 

considered the record provided on appeal and the arguments of the parties, we reject 

Perry’s remaining challenges for the reasons stated by the magistrate judge and the 

district court. See Perry v. Berryhill, No. 1:17-cv-00132 (E.D. Va. Dec. 14, 2017); Perry 

v. Berryhill, No. 1:17-cv-00132 (E.D. Va. Sept. 27, 2017). In short, we agree that the 

 

work” or “public contact,” to account for moderate limitations in concentration, 

persistence and pace. Id. at 79 (internal quotations omitted). Those descriptors helped to 

explain the restriction intended by the ALJ, and allowed us to evaluate whether that 

restriction adequately accounted for the claimant’s limitations. Id. at 81.

2 Perry urges us to hold that the ALJ in fact did not properly account for his 

limitations in concentration, persistence, and pace, either in her residual functional 

capacity assessment or in the hypotheticals posed to the vocational expert on the basis of 

that assessment. We will not attempt to resolve that issue here. As discussed above, the 

ALJ’s failure to provide an adequate explanation of her residual functional capacity 

assessment makes it impossible for us to determine whether that assessment – and 

particularly the portion restricting Perry to jobs in a “non-production oriented work 

setting” – properly accounts for Perry’s limitations. 
10

ALJ’s step three determination is supported by substantial evidence, that the ALJ did not 

err in failing to order additional cognitive testing, that the ALJ adequately considered the 

conflicting evidence in the record, and that the ALJ assigned appropriate weight to the 

opinions of the state agency physicians and psychologists who reviewed the medical and 

nonmedical evidence in the record. 

III.

For the foregoing reasons, we vacate the district court’s order granting summary 

judgment to the Commissioner, and remand to the district court with instructions to 

vacate the denial of benefits and remand for further administrative proceedings consistent 

with this opinion.

VACATED AND REMANDED