Opinion ID: 1372456
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Past Relevant Work (Step Four)

Text: The ALJ's analysis was also flawed at step four of the sequential evaluation. Step four requires the Commissioner to determine whether the claimant has the residual functional capacity to perform his or her past relevant work. 20 C.F.R. § 404.1520(a)(4)(iv). If so, the Commissioner will find that [the claimant is] not disabled. Id. Past relevant work is work that you have done within the past 15 years, that was substantial gainful activity, and that lasted long enough for you to learn how to do it. Id. § 404.1560(b)(1) (emphasis added). To decide whether Mueller had the residual functional capacity to do past relevant work on or before her date last insured, the ALJ should have analyzed whether Mueller's work during the 15-year period ending on January 31, 1997, rose to the level of substantial gainful activity. See id. §§ 404.335(c)(1), 404.1560(b)(1). The ALJ found that Mueller was capable of performing past relevant work [both] as a music teacher and substitute teacher. (Admin. R. at 18 (emphasis added).) During the 15-year period ending with her date last insuredJanuary 31, 1982, to January 31, 1997Mueller's only work as a substitute teacher came in 1984 and 1985, when she earned $1,188 and $637, respectively. (Admin. R. at 73.) At step one of the sequential evaluation, the ALJalbeit unnecessarilyconcluded that Mueller's work[] as a part-time substitute school teacher ... since her amended alleged onset date of September 16, 1996 ... [was] part-time and seasonal in nature ... [and] did not constitute substantial gainful activity. ... ( Id. at 15.) Thus, even in 2002 and 2003, when Mueller earned $4,327 and $4,779 substitute teaching and more than $400 a month teaching piano lessons, the ALJ did not believe her work constituted substantial gainful activity. ( See id. at 86, 191.) Given the ALJ's step-one finding and Mueller's minimal earnings in 1984 and 1985, substantial evidence does not support the ALJ's step-four determination that Mueller had past relevant work as a substitute teacher. See Lowe, 226 F.3d at 971. During the 15-year period ending with her date last insuredJanuary 31, 1982, to January 31, 1997Mueller taught piano lessons from 1990 to 1995. (Admin. R. at 73.) According to one doctor's report, Mueller was busy ... with her music teaching and [had] about 43 students in November 1994. ( Id. at 136.) However, the record contains no evidence of her earnings during that period, nor is there any discussion in the ALJ's written decision or the hearing transcript about her work as a piano instructor prior to 2002. Instead, the ALJ instructed the vocational expert to assume that Mueller's music teaching was past relevant work ( id. at 204), but the ALJ never subsequently analyz[ed] whether it was past relevant work, Cavazos v. Astrue, No. CV-07-3001-CI, 2008 WL 336792, at  (E.D.Wash. Feb.5, 2008) (unpublished). On remand, the ALJ will need to consider and discuss whether [Mueller's music teaching from 1990 to 1995] qualifies as past relevant work, that is, was performed within the past 15 years [from her date last insured], lasted long enough to learn how to do it, and constituted substantial gainful activity. Id.; see also 20 C.F.R. §§ 404.1520(a)(4)(iv), 1560(b)(1).