UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF INDIANA 

BARBARA G. TAYLOR, 

 

 Plaintiff, 

 v. Case No. 3:15-CV-348 JVB 

 

CAROLYN W. COLVIN, 

Acting Commissioner of 

Social Security Administration, 

 

 Defendant. 

OPINION AND ORDER 

 Plaintiff Barbara G. Taylor seeks judicial review of the Social Security Administration’s 

decision denying her disability insurance benefits, and asks this Court to remand the case. While 

Plaintiff had counsel on the administrative level, she is proceeding pro se in her appeal. Because 

Plaintiff has failed to identify any specific error in the Administrative Law Judge’s decision and 

because the decision itself is supported by substantial evidence in the record, the Court affirms 

the decision of the Acting Commissioner. 

This Court has authority to review the Commissioner’s decision under 42 U.S.C. 

§ 405(g). The Court must ensure that the ALJ has built an “accurate and logical bridge” from 

evidence to conclusion. Thomas v. Colvin, 745 F.3d 802, 806 (7th Cir. 2014). The Court will 

uphold decisions that apply the correct legal standard and are supported by substantial evidence. 

Briscoe ex rel. Taylor v. Barnhart, 425 F.3d 345, 351 (7th Cir. 2005). 

 The Commissioner follows a five-step inquiry in evaluating claims for disability benefits 

under the Social Security Act:

(1) whether the claimant is currently employed; (2) whether the claimant has a 

severe impairment; (3) whether the claimant’s impairment is one that the 
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Commissioner considers conclusively disabling; (4) if the claimant does not have 

a conclusively disabling impairment, whether he can perform his past relevant 

work; and (5) whether the claimant is capable of performing any work in the 

national economy.

Kastner v. Astrue, 697 F.3d 642, 646 (7th Cir. 2012).

 The claimant bears the burden of proof at every step except step five. Clifford v. Apfel, 

227 F.3d 863, 868 (7th Cir. 2000).

Plaintiff’s appeal consists of generic review of her medical, employment, and social 

history beginning in 1979 when she was seventeen years old. In her opening brief, she doesn’t 

cite to the record; in her reply, she does have some citations to the record but they’re imprecise 

and sometimes contradictory to the propositions for which they’re cited.1 In all, Plaintiff believes 

that, following a car accident in 1999, she began suffering serious medical problems but the ALJ 

overlooked them because he failed to review her case thoroughly. 

 Mindful of Plaintiff’s pro se status, the Court gives her special deference in her appeal, 

holding her to lesser procedural requirements. But she is not excused from meeting her legal 

burden to show that the ALJ committed a harmful error. Shinseki v. Sanders, 129 S.Ct. 1696, 

1706 (2009). And in this task she has failed. 

 Again, Plaintiff portrays herself as a person who’s had medical issues for the past twenty 

years. She even submits some new medical records from 2015. But she doesn’t explain why it 

was an error for the ALJ to find her not disabled through the end of her last insured date, 

December 31, 2004. So much of what Plaintiff complains of---carpal tunnel syndrome, 

rheumatoid arthritis, uterine fibroids, etc.---were not present before the insured period ended and 

 

1

 For example, on page 3 of her Reply brief, she refers the Court to pages 229 and 235 in the Record, among others, 

for the proposition that she had suffered a heart attack. Yet in neither page is there any confirmation of her having 

suffered a heart attack. In fact, on page 235, the examiner’s notes state the opposite: “Normal nuclear medicine 

myocardial . . . study.” 
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they are too remote to be material to her claim. 

 Furthermore, Plaintiff does not question the ALJ’s credibility findings. Nor does she 

argue that the ALJ didn’t base his decision on the medical information before him. In fact, the 

ALJ contrasted the medical information in the record with her subjective complaints, finding the 

latter to be overstated. Moreover, Plaintiff’s testimony didn’t square with the testimony from her 

husband and her daughter, who portrayed a much wider range of her activities than she did. 

 As the ALJ noted, the record doesn’t contain any treating physician opinions that suggest 

that she was permanently disabled or that she had limits greater than the ALJ found. Plaintiff was 

represented by counsel at the hearing, and she doesn’t argue that her attorney didn’t have access 

to all of her medical evidence. Yet, nothing in the record stands in contradiction of the ALJ’s 

residual functional capacity finding, which in fact was more restrictive than the limits imposed 

by medical sources. In her appeal, the Plaintiff hasn’t pointed out to any part of the record 

showing that she suffered a disability before the last insured date or, in other words, that the ALJ 

didn’t base his decision on substantial evidence in the record. While the Court understands that 

Plaintiff has suffered her share of hardships in life, which are listed in her briefs, she’s failed to 

show that her case should be remanded for re-evaluation. 

 Accordingly, the Court affirms the decision of the Social Security Administration. 

SO ORDERED on September 27, 2016.

 S/ Joseph S. Van Bokkelen 

 JOSEPH S. VAN BOKKELEN

 UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE