Court Opinion

ID: 9489779
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 13:23:58.602297+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:53:42.661826
License: Public Domain

' LEAVY, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
I concur in Part II of the majority opinion, but must dissent from the analysis and conclusion of Part I.
Citing Andrews v. Shalala, 53 F.3d 1035, 1041 (9th Cir.1995) and Lester v. Chater, 81 F.3d 821, 831 (9th Cir.1995) (as amended), the majority concludes that “the ALJ erred *1468because he neither explicitly rejected the opinion of Dr. Brown, nor set forth specific, legitimate reasons for crediting Dr. Walter over Dr. Brown.” Opinion at 1464. Andrews does not support the proposition stated, and Lester is inapposite.
In Andrews, the ALJ credited the testimony of a nontreating, consulting medical advis- or over that of a nontreating, examining psychologist. On appeal we stated that, just as the opinion of a treating physician is ordinarily accorded greater weight than that of a nontreating physician, “greater weight is accorded to the opinion of an examining physician than a non-examining physician.” 53 F.3d at 1041 (citing a federal regulation and a footnote to a Ninth Circuit case).1 We did not hold, however, that an ALJ must provide specific, legitimate reasons for giving greater weight to the opinion of a consulting physician than to that of an examining physician; in fact, we applied a much lower standard, different from that used in the treating versus nontreating physician situation:
[W]hen it is an examining physician’s opinion that the ALJ has rejected in reliance on the testimony of a nonexamining advisor, reports of the nonexamining advis- or need not be discounted and may serve as substantial evidence when they are supported by other evidence in the record and are consistent with it.
Andrews, 53 F.3d at 1041 (emphasis in original).
In Lester, we reversed the ALJ’s decision rejecting the medical opinions of both a treating physician and an examining psychologist in favor of that of a nonexamining medical advisor because there was no “record evidence to support it [i.e., the nonexamining medical advisor’s opinion]”. 81 F.3d at 832.
Here, substantial record evidence supports the ALJ’s finding that the claimant was not mentally disabled. The ALJ explicitly found that there was no evidence of any mental impairment on the part of the claimant prior to 1991,2 and that “[t]he claimant has not been under any ‘disability’ as defined in the Social Security Act, as amended, at any time through the date of this decision.” ER vol. II at 180, Finding # 9. In reviewing the ALJ’s decision in the light of the administrative record, the district court reached the following conclusion:
The second critical deficiency in plaintiffs argument is the absence of any evidence showing that he had a listed impairment prior to the expiration of his insured status. Even if plaintiff had met the requirements of section 12.04 at the time Dr. Brown examined him in November, 1991, the ALJ’s decision would still be upheld, because there is no evidence showing that plaintiff met those criteria as of December 31, 1989, when his insured status expired. To the contrary, the record demonstrates that the Listed Impairment was not present at that time.
The record shows, for example, that plaintiff never mentioned any mental impairment in his original applications for benefits filed in 1988. More significantly, when plaintiff asked the Court to remand this ease for consideration of additional medical evidence in 1991, no mention was made of any mental impairment. Only after the case was remanded, and nearly two years after the expiration of plaintiffs insured status, did plaintiff first seek an evaluation of his mental condition.
While Dr. Brown’s report indicates that plaintiffs mental health had been deteriorating for two to three years prior to his 1991 examination, he was merely repeating plaintiffs own assessment of his condition. If anything, the reported deterioration in plaintiffs mental health clearly implies that his condition was better in 1989, when his insured status expired. Indeed, Dr. Brown’s statement that plaintiff has been “temporarily partially disabled on a psychological basis since the end of 1989,” establishes that even he did not consider *1469the impairment to be serious enough to be termed “disabling” prior to the expiration of plaintiffs insured status. Finally, the absence of a .disabling mental condition is supported by the further fact that plaintiff never sought or received any treatment for such condition.
ER vol. I, # 29 at 8-9 (internal citations and footnotes omitted; emphasis in original).
There is more than substantial evidence in the administrative record to support the ALJ’s finding that the claimant did not suffer from a mental impairment prior to December 31,1989. Accordingly, I would affirm.

. 20 C.F.R. § 416.927(d)(1); Pitzer v. Sullivan, 908 F.2d 502, 506 n. 4 (9th Cir.1990).

. See ER vol. II at 173 ("the evidence was devoid of any findings or complaints relative to a mental disorder of the claimant during the period of May 1988 until November 18, 1991”); id, at 178 ("prior to the examination conducted of the claimant at the request of his attorney in November 1991, the record is devoid of any findings of any mental disorder of the claimant”).