Case Name: Belva COMINS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Michael J. ASTRUE, Commissioner of Social Security, Defendant-Appellee
Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
Jurisdiction: United States
Decision Date: 2010-04-15
Citations: 374 F. App'x 147
Docket Number: No. 09-2221-cv
Parties: Belva COMINS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Michael J. ASTRUE, Commissioner of Social Security, Defendant-Appellee.
Judges: PRESENT: PETER W. HALL, DEBRA ANN LIVINGSTON, Circuit Judges, DENNY CHIN, District Judge.
Reporter: West's Federal Appendix
Volume: 374
Pages: 147–150

Head Matter:
Belva COMINS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Michael J. ASTRUE, Commissioner of Social Security, Defendant-Appellee.
No. 09-2221-cv.
United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.
April 15, 2010.
Howard D. Olinsky (Jaya A. Shurtliff, on the brief); Olinsky & Shurtliff, Syracuse, NY, for appellant.
Robert Schriver, Special Assistant United States Attorney (Andreea Lechleitner, Special Assistant United States Attorney, Stephen P. Conte, Acting Chief Counsel, Region II, Office of the General Counsel, Social Security Administration, on the brief), for Andrew T. Baxter, United States Attorney for the Northern District of New York, for appellee.
PRESENT: PETER W. HALL, DEBRA ANN LIVINGSTON, Circuit Judges, DENNY CHIN, District Judge.
The Honorable Denny Chin, United States District Judge for the Southern District of New York, sitting by designation.

Opinion:
AMENDED SUMMARY ORDER
Plaintiff-Appellant appeals from the district court's March 26, 2009, 2009 WL 819379, order adopting the Report & Recommendation of Magistrate Judge Lowe in its entirety, ultimately accepting the Social Security Commissioner's (the "Commissioner") decision and dismissing Ms. Co-mins's complaint. We assume the parties' familiarity with the facts, procedural history, and specification of issues on appeal.
We review the administrative record as a whole to determine whether there is substantial evidence to support the . Commissioner's decision and to ensure the correct legal standards were applied below. Burgess v. Astrue, 537 F.3d 117, 128 (2d Cir.2008). Substantial evidence is more than a "mere scintilla"; instead the record must have "such relevant evidence as a reasonable mind might accept as adequate to support a conclusion." Id. at 127 (internal quotation marks omitted). This review focuses not on the district court opinion but on the administrative ruling. Moran v. Astrue, 569 F.3d 108, 112 (2d Cir.2009).
Appellant raises three objections to ALJ Andrus's ruling, later adopted by the Commissioner. We address them in order. First, Ms. Comins asserts that Dr. Vilas Patil was her treating psychiatrist at the Oswego Hospital Behavioral Services Division, and the ALJ failed to develop fully the record by not requesting a function-by-function analysis from Dr. Patil regarding Ms. Comins's employment limitations. A medical treating source — here, a psychiatrist — provides the applicant "with medical treatment or evaluation and who has, or has had, an ongoing treatment relationship" with the applicant. 20 C.F.R. § 404.1502. The record indicates that Dr. Patil examined Ms. Comins only once, at her discharge from Oswego Hospital, and his assessment of her at the time is included in the record. The only other indication of Dr. Patil's connection with Ms. Comins in the record is his signature on an evaluation of Ms. Comins, performed by Alan Woodworth, which Dr. Patil signed as Woodworth's supervisor. This sparse evidence does not demonstrate that Dr. Patil had an "ongoing treatment relationship" with the applicant. Id. There are numerous evaluations from other sources who actually did treat Ms. Co-mins's medical situation, and the ALJ did not err in not requesting a specific function-by-function analysis from Dr. Patil.
Appellant's second, related objection to the adverse decision concerns the ALJ's evaluation of Ms. Comins's potential mental impairment through the special technique identified in 20 C.F.R. § 416.920a. She asserts that the ALJ did not properly analyze the applicable factors as they applied to her. The special technique requires evaluation of four areas of potential functional limitation: "[activities of daily living; social functioning; concentration, persistence, or pace; and episodes of decompensation." 20 C.F.R. § 416.920a(c)(3). In our decision in Kohler v. Astrue, we determined the ALJ did not evaluate any of the four required areas with the necessary specificity to allow for "[ejffective review by this Court." 546 F.3d 260, 267 (2d Cir.2008). Here, however, the AL J's decision specifically expounded upon each of the four functional areas of the special technique. Bolstered by evaluations from a variety of medical personnel who evaluated Ms. Comins, he carefully laid out the limitations Ms. Comins would be expected to have in each area. This objection, therefore, is without merit.
The third objection involves the testimony of the vocational expert, which Ms. Comins argues was improperly elicited by the ALJ's hypothetical questions. We find no issue with the hypotheticals posed by ALJ Andrus because they appropriately sought to probe variations of Ms. Comins's ability to work.
After reviewing the issues on appeal and the not insubstantial record of all the proceedings below, we affirm for substantially the reasons articulated by the district court in its order and opinion.
Accordingly, the judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED.