Opinion ID: 6345773
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: True Harmless Error Argument

Text: Ms. Davis also contends the district court legally erred in applying Evans because the Commissioner did not make a “true ‘harmless error’ argument.” Aplt. Am. Opening Br. at 18. That is, given that “the ALJ offered no explanation at all for his failure to [c]onsider the third-party” statement, the Commissioner’s argument “supplie[d] a new factual and/or legal predicate not present in the ALJ’s reasoning.” Id. This argument fails because the Commissioner did not present an “entirely new legal theory . . . based on reasoning not explicitly relied on by the ALJ.” Hackett, 475 F.3d at 1175 (brackets and quotations omitted). Nor did the Commissioner ask the district court to affirm the ALJ’s decision on grounds different from those considered by the agency. See id. at 1174-75. Rather, the Commissioner argued that the ALJ’s error was harmless because other reasoning in his decision supplied sufficient grounds for affirmance notwithstanding the error. This is a well-established harmless error argument. See, e.g., Fischer-Ross v. Barnhart, 431 F.3d 729, 734-35 (10th Cir. 2005) (ALJ’s failure to make detailed findings at one step of the sequential analysis was harmless where findings “made elsewhere in the ALJ’s decision” provided a 8 Appellate Case: 21-3148 Document: 010110691354 Date Filed: 06/01/2022 Page: 9 proper basis for his conclusion); see also Best-Willie, 514 F. App’x at 736; Brescia, 287 F. App’x at 630.2