Opinion ID: 2765947
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Secondary Gain

Text: The ALJ stated that, “although the claimant testified she missed work due to pain, her primary care physician, Dr. Riley, noted on July 13, 2007, that the claimant ‘does not like work, has mentioned several times she does not care if they fire her’ and questioned whether there was an issue of secondary gain.” The ALJ is correct that Claimant testified that she missed work due to pain. Dr. Riley’s note stated that Claimant “apparently does not like work much and has mentioned to me several times that she does not care if they fire her, and apparently there is some sort of conflict there. I am not sure if there is any secondary gain, but she is certainly not enamored of her job.” As an initial matter, the fact that Claimant did not like her job is not, without more, a valid reason to discredit her testimony about why she missed work. One can dislike (or like) a job and yet be forced to miss some days from work because of illness or pain. Rather, the ALJ apparently read Dr. Riley’s note as questioning whether Claimant was exaggerating her symptoms in order to miss work that she disliked.5 Read in that way, substantial evidence arguably supports the ALJ’s finding. But even if we were to read Dr. Riley’s note thus, we conclude that this one weak reason is 5 If that is what Dr. Riley meant, he expressed the thought inartfully. “Malingering” or “exaggerating” is the appropriate term. “Secondary gain” means “external and incidental advantage derived from an illness, such as rest, gifts, personal attention, release from responsibility, and disability benefits.” Dorland’s Illustrated Medical Dictionary 721 (29th ed.). Secondary gain is not the same as malingering; secondary gain is an incidental advantage derived from an actual illness. That is, Claimant’s illnesses and pain allowed her to miss work that she may have disliked. But that conclusion does not necessarily mean that she was malingering. BURRELL V. COLVIN 13 insufficient to meet the “specific, clear and convincing” standard on this record. Molina, 674 F.3d at 1112; see also Lingenfelter v. Astrue, 504 F.3d 1028, 1035 (9th Cir. 2007) (holding that “we must consider the entire record as a whole, weighing both the evidence that supports and the evidence that detracts from the Commissioner’s conclusion, and may not affirm simply by isolating a specific quantum of supporting evidence.” (citation and internal quotation marks omitted)). Dr. Riley treated Claimant for several years, and this is the only statement of its type. Moreover, Dr. Riley merely suggested that perhaps there was an issue of secondary gain—he did not affirmatively find that Claimant was exaggerating or malingering. Because the ALJ’s other reasons—discussed above—are not supported by substantial evidence, and because this reason is weak on this record, we conclude that the ALJ erred in discrediting Claimant’s testimony. See Carmickle v. Comm’r, Soc. Sec. Admin., 533 F.3d 1155, 1162 (9th Cir. 2008) (holding that, when the ALJ errs, we must inquire “whether the ALJ’s decision remains legally valid, despite such error”).