Court Opinion

ID: 9392320
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-05-04 17:00:49.563749+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:18:45.406521
License: Public Domain

FILED
                            NOT FOR PUBLICATION
                                                                                 MAY 4 2023
                     UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS                         MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
                                                                              U.S. COURT OF APPEALS

                            FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

TAMARA ALYN LANHAM,                               No.    22-35399

              Plaintiff-Appellant,                D.C. No. 6:20-cv-01601-MC

 v.
                                                  MEMORANDUM*
KILOLO KIJAKAZI, Acting
Commissioner of Social Security,

              Defendant-Appellee.

                   Appeal from the United States District Court
                             for the District of Oregon
                   Michael J. McShane, District Judge, Presiding

                        Argued and Submitted April 20, 2023
                                 Portland, Oregon

Before: RAWLINSON, BEA, and SUNG, Circuit Judges.

      Tamara Lanham appeals the denial of her application for Social Security

benefits. We review the district court’s decision “de novo, and will disturb the

denial of benefits only if the decision contains legal error or is not supported by

      *
             This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
substantial evidence.” Terry v. Saul, 998 F.3d 1010, 1012 (9th Cir. 2021) (citation

omitted).

       1.     Any error in incorporating the residual functional capacity (RFC)

limitation of “minimal reading and writing skills” into the hypothetical posed to

the Vocational Expert (VE) was harmless. See Carmickle v. Comm’r Soc. Sec.

Admin., 533 F.3d 1155, 1162 (9th Cir. 2008) (explaining that an error is harmless

when it is “inconsequential to the ultimate nondisability determination”) (citations

omitted)). The VE identified two jobs in the national economy, small parts

assembler and electronics worker, which do not require reading or writing. And

Lanham conceded before the district court and at oral argument on appeal that she

could perform these jobs.

       2.     The ALJ did not err by declining to address the rebuttal job-numbers

evidence. See White v. Kijakazi, 44 F.4th 828, 836 (9th Cir. 2022) (“[A]n ALJ

need only resolve job-number inconsistencies if the competing job numbers

constitute significant probative evidence . . . .”) (citation, alteration, and internal

quotation marks omitted)). The generic job numbers contained in Lanham’s post-

hearing filing did not significantly undermine the VE’s expert opinion regarding

the number of available jobs. See Kilpatrick v. Kijakazi, 35 F.4th 1187, 1192–93

(9th Cir. 2022) (recognizing VEs as experts). In addition, Lanham did not cross-

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examine the VE regarding the job-numbers estimates. See Shaibi v. Berryhill, 883

F.3d 1102, 1110 (9th Cir. 2017), as amended. “We recognize that a claimant will

rarely, if ever, be in a position to anticipate the particular occupations a VE might

list[,]” but a claimant may “inquir[e] as to the evidentiary basis for a VE’s

estimated job numbers, or inquir[e] as to” the consistency of the numbers. Id.

      AFFIRMED.

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