In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________

No. 16-3653

MELISSA VANPROOYEN,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

NANCY A. BERRYHILL, Acting Commissioner of Social

 Security,

Defendant-Appellee.

____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the

Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.

No. 14 C 6755 — Young B. Kim, Magistrate Judge.

____________________

ARGUED JULY 6, 2017 — DECIDED JULY 21, 2017

____________________

Before POSNER, KANNE, and SYKES, Circuit Judges.

POSNER, Circuit Judge. Melissa Vanprooyen applied for 

Disability Insurance Benefits and Supplemental Security Income, claiming disability based on a litany of maladies. An 

administrative law judge found her impairments to be se-
2 No. 16-3653

vere but not disabling and denied benefits. The Appeals 

Council of the Social Security Administration denied review, 

and the district court (a magistrate judge presiding by consent) upheld the administrative law judge’s decision, precipitating this appeal.

Vanprooyen initially claimed to have become disabled in 

March 2010, when she was 26 years old and fell down a 

flight of stairs and suffered a brain hemorrhage. She also alleged a history of post-traumatic stress disorder, short-term 

memory loss, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, anxiety, seizures, and fibromyalgia.

Already by March 2009 Vanprooyen’s personal physician, Dr. Dorothy Jones, had prescribed generic Xanax to 

treat her anxiety and panic attacks. In July, after she had begun inpatient drug treatment, Dr. Jones noted that she was 

taking a different anti-anxiety medication and pronounced 

her “medically stable.” In October and December a psychiatrist named Harlan Alexander treated Vanprooyen for anxiety, depression, and bipolar disorder. During one session

Vanprooyen revealed a history of addiction and said her 

Xanax prescription kept running out because she must 

“double it to make it work.”

Her fall on the stairs caused a traumatic brain hemorrhage and brain contusion in the left hemisphere, which required her hospitalization. An EEG (electroencephalogram)

performed to rule out epileptic activity showed mild brain

damage. After a week she was discharged from the hospital 

with a doctor’s note saying that she could resume working 

after her next neurosurgical appointment, which would be in 

a week or two. She was prescribed medication, including Ultram, for general pain, migraine headaches, and seizures.
No. 16-3653 3

A week later Vanprooyen saw Dr. Alexander. She told 

him she’d experienced strong headaches since the fall and

had run out of the pain medication given her by the hospital 

doctors. The psychiatrist prescribed her Abilify, Zoloft, Trazadone, and Xanax.

A month after her fall, Vanprooyen had a neurosurgery

follow-up by a Dr. Nassir Mansour, who declared she’d 

“made a very good recovery.” She was alert, her cranial 

nerves intact, had full strength, and was “very keen to go 

back to her job” as a waitress. But just a week later she suffered a tonic-clonic (i.e., grand mal) seizure. She had another 

seizure in the emergency room and was taken to intensive 

care suffering from a subdural hematoma (bleeding under 

the skull that can cause serious brain damage, including 

death). Dr. Jones treated her at the hospital and noted that 

her seizure medication had been discontinued. A neurologist

obtained a CT scan (a scan for determining internal injuries) 

and noted that it showed softened brain tissue. He opined 

that Vanprooyen “may be relatively stable” but said she 

should take anti-epileptic medication for at least two years. 

He ruled out driving for six months, climbing to any height, 

using machinery, drinking alcohol, showering without assistance, or working more than eight hours a day. Though 

complying with the limitations imposed by him, 

Vanprooyen continued to have headaches, and a couple of 

weeks later the doctor changed her anti-seizure medication—which however she stopped taking almost immediately because it made her drowsy.

In December 2010 she suffered another serious seizure, 

and the neurologist reduced her work ceiling to six hours a 

day while also stressing the importance of her taking her 
4 No. 16-3653

medication. A few weeks later he reviewed a new EEG, 

which revealed abnormalities in Vanprooyen’s brain capable 

of causing seizures.

In January 2011, Vanprooyen described to Dr. Alexander, 

the psychiatrist, worsening anxiety, migraines, and difficulty 

sleeping. At her next appointment she reported that her 

mother had thrown out her Xanax. The Xanax had helped,

so Dr. Alexander refilled the prescription.

Vanprooyen delivered a baby in October 2011. She hadn’t 

suffered a seizure since December 2010 even though another 

physician had changed her anti-seizure medication because 

of negative side effects, noting that Vanprooyen’s medical 

issues included the use of methadone to combat drug addiction.

Eight days after her child was born, Vanprooyen went to 

the emergency room after experiencing several days of pain 

(which she scored at 7 of 10) radiating from her lower back 

to her legs. An emergency room doctor attributed the pain to 

fibromyalgia. After leaving the hospital she returned to Dr.

Alexander and told him she’d been anxious throughout her 

pregnancy and wanted to resume taking Xanax (which apparently she’d stopped taking while pregnant). Although the 

doctor refilled the prescription, Vanprooyen’s anxiety didn’t 

abate, and soon she began reporting memory loss, greater 

difficulty sleeping, worsening generalized pain, and headaches. Dr. Alexander added probable PTSD and fibromyalgia to his diagnoses.

At the end of 2011 Vanprooyen changed psychiatrists, 

seeing Dr. Paul Carter from then until May 2012, which is

when the medical record in this case ends. She told him that 
No. 16-3653 5

anxiety and poor attention were her principal problems. He 

agreed with Dr. Alexander’s diagnoses of generalized anxiety disorder, bipolar disorder, PTSD, and fibromyalgia but 

added opiate dependency.

She visited two rheumatologists in 2012 concerning her 

fibromyalgia. She reported having been diagnosed with the 

disease 10 years earlier with an average pain level of 4 or 5 

out of 10 and greater pain in cold weather. One of the doctors diagnosed Vanprooyen as “diffusely tender at 18/18 

points and multiple control points.” The other suggested

that she visit a fibromyalgia clinic, but the record is silent on 

whether she did so.

In May 2012, Dr. Michael Stone, a state-agency clinical 

psychologist, examined Vanprooyen, diagnosed generalized 

anxiety disorder with panic attacks, ADHD, PTSD, shortterm memory loss, seizures, “brain damage,” and fibromyalgia, and called her a “good informant” who could “remember a good degree of her past history.” During the examination she had “exhibited problems maintaining a consistent level of attention and concentration.” He termed her 

prognosis “guarded” and said that given her “emotional adjustment and medical difficulties” she was “unable to manage benefits [on] her own behalf at this time.”

A month later a state-agency physician, Dr. Bharati Jhaveri, reviewed the medical record and opined that 

Vanprooyen must avoid ladders, ropes, and scaffoldings because of her head injury, seizures, and fibromyalgia but 

could sit, stand, or walk up to 6 hours each during an 8-hour 

workday and also could lift 10 pounds frequently and 

20 pounds occasionally. He concluded that she retained the 

ability to work. 
6 No. 16-3653

Another state-agency psychologist, Dr. Ellen Rozenfeld, 

also reviewed the medical record and opined that, because 

of sustained limitations in concentration and persistence, 

Vanprooyen “would be moderately impaired for detailed/complex tasks but adequate for completion of routine, 

repetitive tasks.” Likewise, in September 2012 a second stateagency physician, Dr. Glen Pittman, having reviewed the 

medical record agreed with Dr. Rozenfeld regarding 

Vanprooyen’s limitations in concentration and persistence.

In October 2012, a new psychiatrist wrote that 

Vanprooyen’s “ability to maintain focus, mental organization and memory is impaired.” He rated as “fair” or “poor” 

her ability to comprehend, remember, or follow instructions, 

but assessed most of her social skills as “good.”

The same month Dr. Jones conducted a medical-source 

assessment of her fibromyalgia, identifying her symptoms as

multiple tender points, nonrestorative sleep, chronic fatigue, 

morning stiffness, frequent and severe headaches, numbness, tingling, and anxiety. She wrote that Vanprooyen’s 

pain and muscle tenderness affected her daily, and rated her 

pain at 7 out of 10. She concluded that Vanprooyen must 

move every 20 minutes, cannot stand more than 2 hours at a 

time, and must take unscheduled breaks—that she was “incapable of even ‘low stress’ work” and would probably miss 

work more than 4 days per month.

The Social Security Administration had denied benefits 

initially in June 2012 and did so again on reconsideration in 

September 2012. At a hearing before an administrative law 

judge in April 2013, Vanprooyen described how her medical 

issues affected her daily life. Her fiancé was working parttime with a varying schedule. Vanprooyen cared for their 
No. 16-3653 7

infant daughter with the assistance of her mother. Although 

she was able to change the baby’s diaper, she couldn’t hold 

her daughter in her arms for long because she weighed 

21 pounds. After her fall down the stairs she’d resumed 

waitressing three days a week but struggled with balance, 

writing, memory, and strength. Her coworkers helped out, 

but she stopped working because “it wasn’t worth my 

coworkers to have to carry my weight.”

Vanprooyen testified at the hearing that about three 

times a week she suffers a migraine on the left side where 

she was injured in the fall. To recover from a migraine she 

must isolate herself in a dark, quiet room, but when caring 

for her daughter she has no choice except to “deal with it.” 

She further testified that she experiences short-term memory 

loss, that her fibromyalgia pain occurs mostly in her back 

and knees and is treated with nonprescription medications 

and methadone, and that she no longer can take prescription 

pain medication, other than methadone, given her history of 

addiction. Her fiancé testified, corroborating Vanprooyen’s

account of her migraines and memory issues.

During the hearing a vocational expert testified that 

Vanprooyen couldn’t perform her past work given the residual functional capacity described by the administrative 

law judge (capable of occasionally balancing, reaching, 

climbing stairs and ramps, kneeling, crouching, and crawling; limited to assisting with simple, routine tasks that can 

be learned through short demonstrations; and unable to 

work around hazardous conditions, operate a motor vehicle, 

or endure loud environments) but could work as a counter 

clerk, cashier, or a shipping and routing clerk. But he 

acknowledged that she is unemployable if she will be off 
8 No. 16-3653

task or pace 25% of the time, will miss 4 or more days per 

month, cannot sit, stand, or walk continuously for at least 

4 hours during an 8-hour workday, or will require special 

supervision to sustain an ordinary routine.

The administrative law judge rejected Vanprooyen’s account of disabling limitations, stating that the medical record 

revealed a “good recovery” after her fall, that her seizures 

were being controlled with medication, that she continued to 

engage in a “wide range” of daily activities, and that with 

help from coworkers she had continued working at “substantial gainful activity levels” for 20 to 21 months after the 

fall and had stopped working only after giving birth.

The administrative law judge gave “substantial” weight 

to the opinions of the stage-agency physicians because, in 

her view, those doctors had provided “a good synopsis of 

the evidence” and offered opinions “consistent with the 

overall record.” She gave “some” weight to the neurologist 

who had predicted—seven days before Vanprooyen’s first 

seizure—that she could return to her job and maintain a 

normal life despite her fall down the stairs, and purported to 

give “great” weight to the neurologist who had begun treating Vanprooyen after that first seizure, yet disregarded his

limiting her to working only 6 hours a day and gave “little” 

weight to the medical source statement from Vanprooyen’s 

personal physician, Dr. Jones, because she’d limited 

Vanprooyen to “less than sedentary exertional work,” a restriction the administrative law judge called “excessive in 

light of the medical evidence of record and her activities of 

daily living.” The Appeals Council of the Social Security 

Administration denied review of the administrative law 

judge’s decision, which then was affirmed by the district 
No. 16-3653 9

court thus precipitating this appeal to us. Vanprooyen points 

to the administrative law judge’s flawed credibility assessments of her and her fiancé and disregard for the opinions of 

her treating physicians, and notes that in finding her not 

credible the administrative law judge had overemphasized 

her daily activities—and equating daily activities with an 

ability to work can lead to reversal. See Bjornson v. Astrue, 

671 F.3d 640, 647 (7th Cir. 2012). 

Of particular significance, Vanprooyen points out that 

the administrative law judge misunderstood the significance 

of her employment before her onset date (that is, the date 

several months after her fall down the stairs when her disability compelled her to quit work). The fact that she worked

before the onset date doesn’t negate the possibility that she

became disabled by the onset. Goins v. Colvin, 764 F.3d 677, 

679 (7th Cir. 2014); Shauger v. Astrue, 675 F.3d 690, 697 

(7th Cir. 2012). Between her fall in March 2010 and her onset 

in October 2011 she worked only three days a week. Parttime work is not good evidence of ability to engage in fulltime employment, especially as she was able to continue 

working part-time only because some managers gave her 

easier shifts and other preferential treatment. She also received help from coworkers, took unscheduled breaks, and 

wrote everything down without abbreviation—

accommodations that the administrative law judge mentioned only in passing and sometimes failed to mention at 

all.

She is also correct that after recounting at some length 

the favorable testimony of her fiancé, the administrative law 

judge never explained why that testimony shouldn’t lead to 

a favorable assessment of her credibility. It wasn’t logical for 
10 No. 16-3653

the administrative law judge to discredit Vanprooyen while 

dismissing without explanation a corroborating witness who 

supported her contentions.

Vanprooyen further contends that the administrative law 

judge improperly discounted the opinions of treating 

sources in rejecting the views of her personal physician, neurologist, and psychiatrist. We agree with Vanprooyen that 

the administrative law gave no logical reason for discounting the opinions of these doctors, such as Dr. Jones. A treating physician’s opinion trumps the conclusions of agency 

consultants—in particular those who never examined the 

claimant—unless the limitations articulated by the treating 

physician are not supported by the record. See Engstrand v. 

Colvin, 788 F.3d 655, 662 (7th Cir. 2015). While it’s true that 

Dr. Jones had seen Vanprooyen only once or twice a year 

since 2005, neither of the agency’s consulting physicians had 

ever examined her. The administrative law judge also rejected Dr. Jones’s opinion because it rested mainly on 

Vanprooyen’s reports of pain. That, too, was error, because 

Dr. Jones’s medical-source statement concerned only 

Vanprooyen’s fibromyalgia, which cannot be measured with 

objective tests aside from a trigger-point assessment. And 

that assessment showed that Vanprooyen was “[d]iffusely 

tender at 18/18 points and multiple control points.” 

See Sarchet v. Chater, 78 F.3d 305, 306–07 (7th Cir. 1996) (discussing challenge of diagnosing fibromyalgia and unavailability of objective tests); Suleman Bhana, “Fibromyalgia,”

American College of Rheumatology (March 2017),

www.rheumatology.org/I-Am-A/Patient-Caregiver/

Diseases-Conditions/Fibromyalgia (noting that causes of fibromyalgia are unclear and diagnostic tools lacking). An

“ALJ may not discredit a claimant’s testimony about her 
No. 16-3653 11

pain and limitations solely because there is no objective 

medical evidence supporting it.” Villano v. Astrue, 556 F.3d 

558, 562 (7th Cir. 2009); Carradine v. Barnhart, 360 F.3d 751, 

754 (7th Cir. 2004) (“Pain is always subjective in the sense of 

being experienced in the brain.”).

The administrative law judge also gave little weight to 

the psychiatrist who opined that Vanprooyen has “fair or 

poor mental abilities.” The administrative law judge declared that opinion inconsistent with other medical evidence, 

including “treatment records that generally indicate that the 

claimant’s mental status examination findings were normal 

and she reported improvement with medications.” Wrong; 

the treatment records do not indicate a finding of “normal” 

mental status. The only mention of “normal” in the psychiatrist’s progress notes says that Vanprooyen’s motor skills 

were “within normal limits.” The administrative law judge 

disregarded all the psychiatrist’s other notes, covering a period of six months, reporting that Vanprooyen had only fair 

judgment and insight and that her mood was okay at times 

but anxious and distraught at others. The administrative law 

judge also disregarded Dr. Alexander’s three years of psychiatric treatment without even mentioning him in the decision. And while Vanprooyen did report some improvement 

with medication, there were times when her medication did 

not improve her symptoms and she had to change medications and doses.

Notably the administrative law judge failed to mention 

that a state consultative examiner who had given 

Vanprooyen a mental-status examination concluded that she 

was unable to manage her own money because of her “emotional adjustment and medical difficulties.” This omission 
12 No. 16-3653

was especially serious because at least two of the three jobs 

that the administrative law judge found that Vanprooyen 

could do—cashier and counter clerk—involve handling 

money. Instead, without any logical explanation, the administrative law judge gave substantial weight to the opinions of 

consulting physicians who had never examined 

Vanprooyen, saying only that they had provided “a good 

synopsis of the evidence” and that “their opinions are consistent with the overall record.” “An ALJ can reject an examining physician’s opinion only for reasons supported by 

substantial evidence in the record; a contradictory opinion of 

a non-examining physician does not, by itself, suffice.”

Gudgel v. Barnhart, 345 F.3d 467, 470 (7th Cir. 2003).

Because of the serious deficiencies in the administrative 

law judge’s analysis, we reverse the decision of the district 

court and remand the case to the Social Security Administration for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

REVERSED AND REMANDED.