Opinion ID: 4421217
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The ALJ Chose a “Simple Tasks”

Text: Limitation Before reaching the merits of this issue, we must address one preliminary matter. Both parties treat the limitation here – “to jobs requiring understanding, remembering, and carrying out only simple instructions and making only simple work-related decisions[,]” (App. at 3334) – as equivalent to a limitation to “simple tasks.” That is important because the case law they rely upon generally involves so-called “simple tasks” limitations. We agree with their interpretation of the ALJ’s framing of the limitation. A limitation to “simple tasks” is fundamentally the same as one “to jobs requiring understanding, remembering, and carrying out only simple 25 instructions and making only simple work-related decisions[.]” (App. at 33-34;) see Davis v. Berryhill, 743 F. App’x 846, 850 (9th Cir. 2018) (treating “understanding, remembering, and carrying out only simple instructions” as equivalent to “simple tasks”); Richards v. Colvin, 640 F. App’x 786, 790 (10th Cir. 2016) (referring to a limitation “to understanding, remembering, and carrying out only simple instructions and making only simple work-related decisions” as a “simple-work limitation[]”). Indeed, both formulations – the ALJ’s and the more concise phrase “simple tasks” – relate to mental abilities necessary to perform “unskilled work.” See 20 C.F.R. §§ 404.1568(a), 416.968(a) (“Unskilled work is work which needs little or no judgment to do simple duties that can be learned on the job in a short period of time.”); SSR 96-9P, 1996 WL 374185, at  (July 2, 1996) (concluding that “unskilled work” requires “[u]nderstanding, remembering, and carrying out simple instructions” and “[m]aking … simple workrelated decisions”); cf. Richards, 640 F. App’x at 790 (treating “simple-work limitations” as similar to “unskilled work” limitations). So the parties’ reliance on case law related to “simple tasks” is appropriate and helpful.