Court Opinion

ID: 9352143
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-01-05 14:00:25.027028+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:58:15.324050
License: Public Domain

USCA11 Case: 21-12928    Document: 30-1     Date Filed: 01/05/2023   Page: 1 of 7

                                                  [DO NOT PUBLISH]
                                   In the
                United States Court of Appeals
                        For the Eleventh Circuit

                          ____________________

                                No. 21-12928
                          Non-Argument Calendar
                          ____________________

       THOMAS EUGENE JOINER,
                                                     Plaintiff-Appellant,
       versus
       SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION, COMMISSIONER,

                                                   Defendant-Appellee.

                          ____________________

                 Appeal from the United States District Court
                    for the Northern District of Alabama
                    D.C. Docket No. 4:20-cv-01321-ACA
                          ____________________
USCA11 Case: 21-12928      Document: 30-1      Date Filed: 01/05/2023     Page: 2 of 7

       2                       Opinion of the Court                 21-12928

       Before ROSENBAUM, GRANT, and LUCK, Circuit Judges.
       PER CURIAM:
              Thomas Joiner applied to the Social Security Administration
       for supplemental security income and was denied. He appealed the
       denial to the district court, which affirmed the decision. Now, he
       appeals to us, and we affirm.
           FACTUAL BACKGROUND AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

              In February 2019, Joiner applied for adult supplemental se-
       curity income for a disability that began about ten years earlier.
       Joiner listed ten medical conditions that allegedly limited his ability
       to work: a back problem, degenerative disc disease, a bulging disc,
       pinched nerves, arthritis in both legs, a pitting edema, no cartilage
       in the right knee, hypertension, anxiety, and depression. And he
       said that before he became unable to work, he had jobs as a painter
       for a residential contractor and as a pipe fitter for a construction
       company.
              The Administration denied Joiner’s application, and Joiner
       requested a hearing before an administrative law judge. At the
       hearing, Joiner testified about his living situation, his employment
       and medical histories, the limitations allegedly caused by his medi-
       cal conditions, and how he dealt with the limitations. Then, a vo-
       cational expert testified about how an individual like Joiner could
       hypothetically work in the national economy.
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       21-12928                Opinion of the Court                           3

               The administrative law judge had started the hearing by ac-
       cepting into evidence Joiner’s medical records from 2014 to 2019.
       These records included a May 15, 2019 report in which Joiner’s con-
       sultative examiner, Dr. James Temple, concluded: “With [his] dif-
       ficulty with movement without pain, [Joiner] had to stop work be-
       cause of his inability to carry on his job. I feel he is disabled at this
       point in time.” In his closing argument, Joiner (through a non-at-
       torney representative) mentioned Dr. Temple’s disability determi-
       nation.
              The administrative law judge denied Joiner’s request for
       supplemental security income. The administrative law judge
       “careful[ly] consider[ed]” all evidence—including Joiner’s “com-
       plete medical history”—and concluded that Joiner “ha[d] not been
       under a disability within the meaning of the Social Security Act
       since” he applied in February 2019. The administrative law judge
       followed the Administration’s “five-step sequential evaluation pro-
       cess” to determine whether Joiner was disabled. 20 C.F.R. §
       416.920(a). The administrative law judge concluded that Joiner
       was not disabled at the fifth step because Joiner was “capable of
       making a successful adjustment to other work that exist[ed] in sig-
       nificant numbers in the national economy.”
               In reaching this conclusion, the administrative law judge
       mentioned Dr. Temple’s disability determination and noted that
       administrative law judges “c[ould ]not defer or give any specific ev-
       identiary weight, including controlling weight, to any prior admin-
       istrative medical finding(s) or medical opinion(s), including those
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       4                      Opinion of the Court                 21-12928

       from medical sources.” 20 C.F.R. § 404.1520c(a). The administra-
       tive law judge also stated that Dr. Temple “did not offer a function-
       by-function analysis of [Joiner]’s abilities and limitations” and that
       the “blanket determination[] regarding [Joiner]’s disability status
       [wa]s a finding . . . reserved for the . . . Administration.” Id.
       § 416.920b(c)(3)(i).
              Joiner appealed the administrative law judge’s decision to
       the Appeals Council, and the Appeals Council denied his request
       for review because the administrative law judge didn’t commit an
       abuse of discretion and the Appeals Council found no other reason
       to review the decision.
               Joiner filed a complaint in the district court seeking review
       of the administrative law judge’s decision. In his memorandum in
       support of disability, Joiner argued that the administrative law
       judge “wrongly rejected” Dr. Temple’s opinion that Joiner was dis-
       abled, improperly substituted his own judgment for Dr. Temple’s,
       “failed to accord proper weight to the opinion,” “failed to recon-
       tact” Dr. Temple “to determine the basis of [the] opinion,” and
       “failed to state with at least ‘some measure of clarity’ grounds for
       decision in repudiating the opinion.” Joiner also cited an out-of-
       circuit case—Wilder v. Chater, 64 F.3d 335 (7th Cir. 1995)—and
       asked the district court to apply the “higher degree of review” that
       the case requires when an administrative law judge “disregards the
       consultative evaluation” of a medical expert selected by the Admin-
       istration.
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       21-12928                Opinion of the Court                         5

               The district court affirmed the administrative law judge’s de-
       cision. The district court said that the administrative law judge spe-
       cifically explained why he rejected Dr. Temple’s opinion, was not
       required to recontact Dr. Temple, and didn’t “substitute[] his opin-
       ion for that of Dr. Temple.” The district court also recognized that
       this court does not follow the Wilder standard, and in any event, it
       found Wilder distinguishable. And “[s]ubstantial evidence,” the
       district court explained, “support[ed] the [administrative law
       judge]’s denial of . . . Joiner’s application for supplemental security
       income.”
                            STANDARD OF REVIEW

              In social security appeals, we review de novo whether the
       correct legal standards were applied. See Washington v. Comm’r
       of Soc. Sec., 906 F.3d 1353, 1358 (11th Cir. 2018).
                                  DISCUSSION

               On appeal, Joiner restates the arguments that he made in the
       district court, contending that the administrative law judge erred
       as a matter of law when he disregarded Dr. Temple’s disability de-
       termination, and asking us to apply the Wilder standard. In assert-
       ing that the administrative law judge erred when he disregarded
       Dr. Temple’s disability determination, Joiner cites cases decided
       under the “treating-physician rule,” which required that an admin-
       istrative law judge defer to a treating physician’s medical opinion
       in determining whether an individual was disabled under the Social
       Security Act. As we recently clarified, the regulation that the
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       6                       Opinion of the Court                 21-12928

       administrative law judge applied in Joiner’s case, 20 C.F.R. sec-
       tion 404.1520c, abrogated the older treating-physician rule. See
       Harner v. Soc. Sec. Admin., Comm’r, 38 F.4th 892, 896 (11th Cir.
       2022) (“Because section 404.1520c falls within the scope of the
       Commissioner’s authority and was not arbitrary and capricious,
       it abrogates our earlier precedents applying the treating-physician
       rule.”).
              Under the current regulations, Dr. Temple’s opinion that
       Joiner was disabled was a statement on an issue reserved to the Ad-
       ministration—whether Joiner was “disabled, blind, able to work,
       or able to perform regular or continuing work.” 20 C.F.R. §
       416.920b(c)(3)(i). Accordingly, it was “[e]vidence that [wa]s inher-
       ently neither valuable nor persuasive.” Id. § 416.920b(c). And the
       administrative law judge didn’t need to “provide any analysis about
       how [he] considered such evidence in [his] determination or deci-
       sion.” Id. Thus, the administrative law judge didn’t err as a matter
       of law when he disregarded Dr. Temple’s disability conclusion.
              Finally, we agree with the district court that Wilder is distin-
       guishable. In Wilder, the consulting physician’s opinion was the
       only medical evidence regarding the applicant’s mental health im-
       pairments, so the rejection of the opinion by the administrative law
       judge, the Seventh Circuit concluded, was “rank conjecture.” 64
       F.3d at 338. But, where the medical evidence is conflicting, as it is
       here, we’ve held that it was not error for the administrative law
       judge to give less weight to the consulting physician’s opinion. See
       Crawford v. Comm’r of Soc. Sec., 363 F.3d 1155, 1160 (11th Cir.
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       21-12928               Opinion of the Court                        7

       2004) (“The ALJ correctly found that, because Hartig examined
       Crawford on only one occasion, her opinion was not entitled to
       great weight. . . . [T]he ALJ’s findings regarding Crawford’s mental
       capacity were supported by the findings of Dr. Mehta, the psychia-
       trist who had examined Crawford on two occasions and reported
       that Crawford was cooperative clear, spontaneous, but without
       any evidence of loose associations, flights of ideas, or pressure of
       speech.” (cleaned up)). That’s what happened here. The adminis-
       trative law judge explained why he rejected Dr. Temple’s disability
       conclusion—Dr. Temple did not offer a function-by-function anal-
       ysis of Joiner’s abilities and limitations and his blanket determina-
       tion that Joiner was disabled was reserved for the Commissioner—
       and instead credited the testimony of the medical evidence show-
       ing that Joiner had residual functional capacity to perform jobs in
       the national economy.
             Finding no error, we affirm.
             AFFIRMED.