IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS 

EASTERN DIVISION 

PETER H.,1

Plaintiff, 

v. 

KILOLO KIJAKAZI, Acting 

Commissioner of Social Security,2

Defendant.

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No. 20 C 01906 

Magistrate Judge Beth W. Jantz 

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER 

 This action was brought under 42 U.S.C. § 405(g) to review the final decision of the 

Commissioner of Social Security denying Plaintiff Peter H.’s application for Disability Insurance 

Benefits (“DIB”) and Supplemental Security Income (“SSI”). The parties have consented to the 

jurisdiction of the United States Magistrate Judge pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 636(c). For the reasons 

that follow, Plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment [Dkt. 15, Pl.’s Mot.] is granted, and the 

Commissioner’s cross-motion for summary judgment [Dkt. 18, Def.’s Mot.] is denied. The 

Commissioner’s decision is reversed, and this matter is remanded for further proceedings 

consistent with this Memorandum Opinion and Order. 

1

 In accordance with Internal Operating Procedure 22, Privacy in Social Security Opinions, the 

Court refers to Plaintiff by his first name and the first initial of his last name. 

2

 Pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 25(d), Commissioner Kilolo Kijakazi has been 

substituted for her predecessor.

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BACKGROUND 

I. Procedural History 

On August 21, 2017, Plaintiff filed a claim for DIB and SSI, alleging disability since 

December 1, 2016 due to anxiety, depression, insomnia, and headaches. [R. 78.] Plaintiff’s claim 

was denied initially and upon reconsideration, after which he timely requested a hearing before an 

Administrative Law Judge (“ALJ”), which was held on January 29, 2019. [R. 33.] Plaintiff 

personally appeared and testified at the hearing and was represented by counsel. [R. 33.] 

Vocational expert (“VE”) Diamond Warren also testified at the hearing. [R. 33, 69.] On April 11, 

2019, the ALJ denied Plaintiff’s claim for benefits, finding him not disabled under the Social 

Security Act. [R. 28.] The Social Security Administration Appeals Council then denied Plaintiff’s 

request for review, leaving the ALJ’s decision as the final decision of the Commissioner and, 

therefore, reviewable by the District Court under 42 U.S.C. § 405(g). Cullinan v. Berryhill, 878 

F.3d 598, 603 (7th Cir. 2017). 

II. The ALJ’s Decision 

The ALJ analyzed Plaintiff’s claim in accordance with the Social Security Administration’s 

five-step sequential evaluation process. [R. 16-17.] The ALJ found at step one that Plaintiff had 

not engaged in substantial gainful activity since his alleged onset date of December 1, 2016. [R. 

17.] At step two, the ALJ concluded that Plaintiff had the following severe impairments: 

depression, anxiety, and panic disorder. [R. 18.] The ALJ concluded at step three that Plaintiff’s 

impairments, alone or in combination, did not meet or medically equal one of the Social Security 

Administration’s listings of impairments (a “Listing”). [R. 18-20.] Before step four, the ALJ 

determined that Plaintiff retained the residual functional capacity (“RFC”) to perform a full range 

of work at all exertional levels, with the following non-exertional limitations: Plaintiff was limited 

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to performing simple and routine tasks; is limited to simple work-related decisions; and is able to 

frequently interact with supervisors and coworkers and is able to occasionally interact with the 

public. [R. 20-26.] At step four, the ALJ concluded that Plaintiff would be able to perform his 

past relevant work as a store laborer. [R. 26-27.] The ALJ further concluded, based upon the VE’s 

testimony and Plaintiff’s age, education, work experience, and RFC, that Plaintiff could perform 

jobs existing in significant numbers in the national economy, leading to a finding that he is not 

disabled under the Social Security Act. [R. 27-28.] 

DISCUSSION 

I. Judicial Review 

 Under the Social Security Act, a person is disabled 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). To determine disability 

within the meaning of the Social Security Act, the ALJ conducts a five-step inquiry, asking 

whether: (1) the claimant has performed any substantial gainful activity during the period for 

which he claims disability; (2) the claimant has a severe impairment or combination of 

impairments; (3) the claimant’s impairment meets or equals any listed impairment; (4) the claimant 

retains the RFC to perform his past relevant work; and (5) the claimant is able to perform any other 

work existing in significant numbers in the national economy. 20 C.F.R. § 416.920(a). 

“A finding of disability requires an affirmative answer at either step three or step five.” Briscoe 

ex rel. Taylor v. Barnhart, 425 F.3d 345, 352 (7th Cir. 2005). “The claimant bears the burden of 

proof at steps one through four, after which at step five the burden shifts to the Commissioner.” 

Id. 

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Judicial review of the ALJ’s decision is limited to determining whether it adequately 

discusses the issues and is based upon substantial evidence and the proper legal criteria. Villano 

v. Astrue, 556 F.3d 558, 561-62 (7th Cir. 2009). “Substantial evidence” is “such relevant evidence 

as a reasonable mind might accept as adequate to support a conclusion.” Biestek v. Berryhill, 139 

S. Ct. 1148, 1154 (2019) (internal quotation omitted). “To determine whether substantial evidence 

exists, the court reviews the record as a whole but does not attempt to substitute its judgment for 

the ALJ’s by reweighing the evidence, resolving material conflicts, or reconsidering facts or the 

credibility of witnesses.” Beardsley v. Colvin, 758 F.3d 834, 836-37 (7th Cir. 2014). While this 

review is deferential, “it is not intended to be a rubber-stamp” on the ALJ’s decision. Stephens v. 

Berryhill, 888 F.3d 323, 327 (7th Cir. 2018). The Court will reverse the ALJ’s finding “if it is not 

supported by substantial evidence or if it is the result of an error of law.” Id., at 327. 

 The ALJ also has a basic obligation to develop a full and fair record, and to “build an 

accurate and logical bridge between the evidence and the result to afford the claimant meaningful 

judicial review of the administrative findings.” Beardsley, 758 F.3d at 837. Although the ALJ is 

not required to mention every piece of evidence in the record, the ALJ’s analysis “must provide 

some glimpse into the reasoning behind her decision to deny benefits.” Zurawski v. Halter, 245 

F.3d 881, 889 (7th Cir. 2001); accord Craft v. Astrue, 539 F.3d 668, 673 (7th Cir. 2008). The ALJ 

“must explain [the ALJ’s] analysis of the evidence with enough detail and clarity to permit 

meaningful appellate review.” Scrogham v. Colvin, 765 F.3d 685, 695 (7th Cir. 2014) (quoting 

Briscoe, 425 F.3d at 351). 

II. Analysis 

 Plaintiff makes four arguments challenging the ALJ’s decision, including: (1) the ALJ’s 

RFC assessment failed to accommodate Plaintiff’s mental impairments; (2) the ALJ failed to 

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properly account for the effects of Plaintiff’s chronic headaches; (3) the ALJ erred in evaluating 

Plaintiff’s subjective statements; and (4) the ALJ improperly evaluated opinion evidence. After 

reviewing the record and the briefs submitted by the parties, this Court concludes that the ALJ 

erred in accounting for Plaintiff’s mental deficits in crafting the RFC. Because this failure alone 

warrants remand, the Court need not reach Plaintiff’s additional arguments. 

 The ALJ found that Plaintiff had moderate deficits in understanding, remembering, or 

applying information, interacting with others, concentrating, persisting, or maintaining pace, and 

adapting and managing himself. [R. 19-20.] To account for these deficits, the ALJ crafted an RFC 

limiting Plaintiff to performing simple and routine tasks, involving only simple work-related 

decisions. [R. 20.] The ALJ also indicated that Plaintiff could frequently interact with supervisors 

and coworkers and occasionally interact with the public. [R. 20.] 

 The ALJ erred in crafting the RFC in multiple ways. First, the ALJ provided no 

explanation for how the RFC accounts for any of plaintiff’s mental impairments or limitations; 

instead, the ALJ simply recited pages of evidence from the medical record and identified an RFC 

without any meaningful analysis establishing how or why the limitations identified in the RFC 

connect with the record. But “[m]erely reciting the medical evidence in close proximity to 

conclusions does not create an accurate and logical connection between evidence and 

conclusions.” Hinton v. Colvin, No. 10 C 2828, 2013 WL 2590711, at *7 (N.D. Ill. June 11, 2013). 

It is not possible for the Court to review an unreasoned RFC; the ALJ’s failure to explain how he 

arrived at any specific limitations itself warrants remand. See Briscoe ex rel. Taylor v. Barnhart, 

425 F.3d 345, 352 (7th Cir. 2005) (“[T]he ALJ did not explain how he arrived at these conclusions 

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[regarding specific limitations]; this omission in itself is sufficient to warrant reversal of the ALJ’s 

decision.”).3 

 Second, the limitations identified in the RFC are precisely of the kind the Seventh Circuit 

has rejected as misdirected at concentration, persistence, and pace. Although the Court cannot 

definitively say which RFC restrictions are directed at Plaintiff’s CPP limitations—because the 

ALJ provided no explanation for how the RFC accounts for plaintiff’s limitations—the Court notes 

that the RFC’s restriction to “simple and routine tasks” involving only “simple work-related 

decisions” has been roundly criticized by the Seventh Circuit as inadequate to account for moderate 

CPP limitations. See, e.g., DeCamp v. Berryhill, 916 F.3d 671, 676 (7th Cir. 2019) (“An ALJ need 

not use specific terminology, but we have repeatedly rejected the notion that a hypothetical ... 

confining the claimant to simple, routine tasks and limited interactions with others adequately 

captures temperamental deficiencies and limitations in concentration, persistence, and pace.”) 

(cleaned up). Observing that an individual can perform simpler tasks “says nothing about whether 

the individual can do so on a sustained basis, including, for example, over the course of a standard 

eight-hour work shift.” Crump v. Saul, 932 F.3d 567, 570 (7th Cir. 2019). 

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 The ALJ did note that state agency psychological consultants found that Plaintiff had capabilities 

similar to those provided for by the RFC. [R. 26.] But the ALJ found the consultants’ findings 

“persuasive to the extent they [sic] consistent with the residual functional capacity above.” [R. 

26]. The ALJ did not provide any explanation for why “the residual functional capacity above” 

appropriately accounted for Plaintiff’s mental limitations; to the extent the ALJ relied on his 

citation to the agency consultants’ findings to do that work for him, his logic is circular, as he only 

credited their opinions to the extent they were consistent with the RFC. Moreover, the ALJ’s 

assessment of the state agency consultant’s opinions is, at best, conclusory, lacking any meaningful 

engagement or analysis of the record beyond a general citation to broad categories of records the 

ALJ says indicated that claimant had “fair eye contact, insight, and judgment at times” and intact 

memory. [R. 26.] Although the Court does not reach Plaintiff’s argument regarding evaluation of 

opinion evidence, it is unlikely the Court would conclude that the ALJ’s perfunctory assessment 

of the state agency consultants’ opinions was supported by substantial evidence. 

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 The Commissioner defends the ALJ’s decision by noting that the ALJ was parroting 

limitations described by the agency consultants whose opinions the ALJ credited, citing Burmester 

v. Berryhill, 920 F.3d 507, 511–12 (7th Cir. 2019). But this case is of the type that the Seventh 

Circuit in Burmester suggested would require remand. In that case, the ALJ was permitted to rely 

on a physician’s “Statement of Work Capacity” that indicated that concentrating at work would be 

manageable for the claimant. Id. at 512. But the ALJ was entitled to do so because—unlike in 

DeCamp (cited above)—the physician’s evaluation contained no “checkbox indicating a moderate 

[CPP] limitation,” and there was no other finding that the claimant had impaired concentration. 

Id. This case is like DeCamp, and not Burmester, because the agency consultants whom the ALJ 

found to be at least partially persuasive did note that Plaintiff had moderate CPP limitations, 

including moderate limitations in his ability to “maintain attention and concentration for extended 

periods.” [R. 83-84, 97-98.] The ALJ was required to properly account for Plaintiff’s moderate 

CPP limitations, and failed to do so by omitting any meaningful explanation for his RFC and by 

employing limitations that the Seventh Circuit has repeatedly rejected as inadequate. DeCamp, 

916 F.3d at 676 (“But even if an ALJ may rely on a narrative explanation, the ALJ still must 

adequately account for limitations identified elsewhere in the record, including specific questions 

raised in check-box sections of standardized forms such as the PRT and MRFC forms.”). Nor did 

the ALJ “explain[], with support from the medical record, how a restriction to” simple and routine 

tasks involving only simple work-related decisions “addresses the claimant’s 

specific concentration, persistence, or pace limitations.” Christopher G. v. Kijakazi, No. 19 CV 

5046, 2022 WL 1989119, at *4 (N.D. Ill. June 6, 2022); c.f. Jozefyk v. Berryhill, 923 F.3d 492, 

498 (7th Cir. 2019) (limitation to routine tasks and limited interactions with others was appropriate 

where claimant’s “impairments surface only when he is with other people or in a crowd”). 

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 Because the ALJ’s failure to properly craft and explain the RFC requires remand, the Court 

need not evaluate the remaining issues identified by the Plaintiff. On remand, however, the 

Administration should not construe the Court’s silence on the remaining issues as an indication 

that the ALJ’s initial adjudication was appropriate or not with respect to those issues. 

CONCLUSION 

 For the foregoing reasons, Plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment [15] is granted, and 

the Commissioner’s motion for summary judgment [18] is denied. The Commissioner’s decision 

is reversed, and this matter is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this Memorandum 

Opinion and Order. 

SO ORDERED. 

Date: 6/9/2022 

 BETH W. JANTZ 

United States Magistrate Judge 

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