Opinion ID: 3059388
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Flowers’s Subjective Complaints

Text: When a claimant attempts to establish disability through her own testimony of pain and other subjective symptoms, a three-part “pain standard” applies. Wilson v. Barnhart, 284 F.3d 1219, 1225 (11th Cir. 2002). The pain standard requires: “(1) evidence of an underlying medical condition; and (2) either (a) objective medical evidence confirming the severity of the alleged pain; or (b) that 16 the objectively determined medical condition can reasonably be expected to give rise to the claimed pain.” Id. If the ALJ determines that the claimant has a medically determinable impairment that could reasonably be expected to produce the pain or other symptoms, then the ALJ evaluates the extent to which the intensity and persistence of the claimant’s pain limits her ability to work. 20 C.F.R. §§ 404.1529(b), 416.929(b). At this stage, the ALJ considers the claimant’s history, the medical signs and laboratory findings, the claimant’s statements, statements by treating and non-treating physicians and other evidence of how the pain affects the claimant’s daily activities and ability to work. Id. §§ 404.1529(c), 416.929(c). A claimant’s testimony supported by medical evidence that satisfies the pain standard is sufficient to support a finding of disability. Foote v. Chater, 67 F.3d 1553, 1561 (11th Cir. 1995). “If the ALJ decides not to credit a claimant’s testimony as to her pain, he must articulate explicit and adequate reasons for doing so. Failure to articulate the reasons for discrediting subjective pain testimony requires . . . that the testimony be accepted as true.” Id. at 1561-62. Here, the ALJ found the testimony of Flowers and Stevens credible only to the extent it was consistent with his RFC determination that Flowers could perform light work. The ALJ’s reasons for partially discrediting Flowers and 17 Stevens were the same as his reasons for discounting the opinions of Flowers’s treating and examining doctors, namely that their testimony was not supported by the medical record or Flowers’s own report to a consulting psychologist that she performed various household chores and regularly attended church and socialized. Moreover, the ALJ’s credibility finding is supported by substantial evidence. As noted above, the medical evidence before the ALJ, including the doctors’ clinical findings and treatment notes, did not confirm the severity (i.e., intensity, persistence and limiting effects) of Flowers’s alleged pain. In April 2003, Flowers complained to Dr. Dubose that her pain was so severe that she could not move, but Dr. Dubose’s clinical findings show that Flowers had full range of motion in her lumbar spine and no limitations in her extremities, and Flowers’s reflexes and coordination were normal. Despite Flowers’s claims of immobilizing pain, Dr. Dubose found no clinical evidence to support the diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis. Also, despite Flowers’s claims that her symptoms were getting worse, Dr. Lawrence-Elliott recommended, in April 2008, that she exercise regularly–three to five times a week for a 20-to-60-minute period. Around the same time, Dr. Lubin found that Flowers had a full range of motion, was able to ambulate, albeit slowly, without an assistive device, and could grasp, pinch, stoop, kneel and bend. And, 18 the consultative exams performed by Dr. Lubin and Dr. Dubose revealed normal and benign findings. Additionally, Flowers’s own statements to the agency indicated that she was physically active in 2003. In particular, Flowers reported to a consulting psychologist that she did some household chores, including preparing meals, washing dishes, making the bed, vacuuming and doing laundry; she could dress herself with some assistance; and she could do yard work such as gardening. Similarly, in a 2003 Daily Living Questionnaire, Flowers stated that she vacuumed, mopped and shopped weekly; she cooked, washed dishes and did laundry daily; and that she needed help only when her hands or feet cramped or when she felt tired. We also reject Flowers’s contention that the ALJ misapplied the pain standard. The ALJ specifically stated that Flowers had medically determinable impairments of lupus, rheumatoid arthritis and degenerative joint disease of the cervical spine. Although the ALJ did not state explicitly that these impairments could reasonably be expected to produce the pain Flowers alleged, this finding is implicit in the ALJ’s decision. Reading the decision as a whole, the ALJ found that Flowers had impairments that could reasonably be expected to produce pain and the other symptoms Flowers alleged, but the ALJ did not believe the 19 testimony of Flowers and Stevens as to the severity of Flowers’s pain and other symptoms, i.e., their intensity, persistence and functionally limiting effects. See Foote, 67 F.3d at 1561 (explaining that once an impairment meeting the pain standard is established, the ALJ must then consider evidence “about the intensity, persistence, and functionally limiting effects of pain or other symptoms” in addition to “the medical signs and laboratory findings in deciding the issue of disability”); see also 20 C.F.R. § 416.929(c)(1) (“When the medical signs or laboratory findings show that you have a medically determinable impairment(s) that could reasonably be expected to produce your symptoms, such as pain, we must then evaluate the intensity and persistence of your symptoms so that we can determine how your symptoms limit your capacity for work . . . .”).6 In sum, the ALJ’s reasons for not fully crediting Flowers’s subjective complaints were supported by substantial evidence in the record before the ALJ.