Court Opinion

ID: 2965345
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2015-09-21 21:38:58.725419+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:01:36.224802
License: Public Domain

USCA1 Opinion

	

      [NOT FOR PUBLICATION--NOT TO BE CITED AS PRECEDENT]
                                
                 United States Court of Appeals
                     For the First Circuit
                                
                                

No. 97-1554

                     JULIO A. PEREZ-ALVARADO,

                      Plaintiff, Appellant,

                                v.

        KENNETH S. APFEL, COMMISSIONER OF SOCIAL SECURITY,
                      Defendant, Appellee.
                                

          APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
                                
                FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO
                                
         [Hon. Hector M. Laffitte, U.S. District Judge]
                                

                             Before
                                
                    Boudin, Stahl and Lynch,
                        Circuit Judges.
                                
                                

     Juan F. Matos Bonet and Matos Bonet & Matos De Juan on brief
for appellant.
     Guillermo Gil, United States Attorney, Lilliam Mendoza-Torro,
Assistant United States Attorney, and Wayne G. Lewis, Assistant
Regional Counsel, Social Security Administration, on brief for
appellee.

June 23, 1998

            Per Curiam.  Claimant Julio Perez Alvarado appeals a
    district court judgment that upheld the denial of his 
    application for Social Security disability benefits.  Alleging
    that he suffers from bronchial asthma and back, left leg, and
    chest pain, claimant maintains that he has been continuously
    disabled since he fractured his left thigh bone in a 1976
  automobile accident.  
       After thoroughly reviewing the record and the
    parties' briefs on appeal, we conclude that the ALJ's decision
    is supported by substantial evidence and uninfected by error of
    law.  Contrary to claimant's contention on appeal, the ALJ was
    not required to credit the vocational expert's testimony that
    claimant could not work if he could not lift at all.  Dr.
    Bonilla's report did not say that claimant was wholly unable to
    lift.  To the contrary, the relatively benign findings recorded
    in this report and the other medical evidence supported the
    ALJ's conclusion that claimant retained the capacity to perform
    at least the sedentary jobs that the vocational expert
  described.    Accordingly, the judgment of the district court is
    affirmed.