Court Opinion

ID: 9466526
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 01:18:36.901928+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:39:47.231455
License: Public Domain

ALDISERT, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
My difference with the majority tracks a narrow compass. I do not disagree with their exposition of appropriate Supreme Court teachings relating to first amendment religious beliefs. I differ with their application of these precepts to the record *82in this case and to the explicit and implicit findings of the Administrative Law Judge, which, in turn, were approved by the Appeals Council.
I would not remand for an additional hearing because although the litigant was entitled to a day in court, she is not entitled to a return visit to repair her inept factual presentation. That she presented her first amendment contention at the.hearing cannot be gainsaid. That the ALJ summarized her position cannot be denied: “The claimant is reluctant to undergo surgery as a result of her religious beliefs.” App. at 14. I see no reason to give this litigant a second chance to prove her case.
My reading of the record convinces me that claimant failed in her burden to demonstrate that her refusal to submit to surgery was based on strongly held religious beliefs as discussed in Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U.S. 398, 83 S.Ct. 1790, 10 L.Ed.2d 965 (1963); Abington School District v. Schempp, 374 U.S. 203, 83 S.Ct. 1560, 10 L.Ed.2d 844 (1963); United States v. Ballard, 322 U.S. 78, 87, 64 S.Ct. 882, 886, 88 L.Ed. 1148 (1944); and Davis v. Beason, 133 U.S. 333, 10 S.Ct. 299, 33 L.Ed. 637 (1890). Although the majority opinion deems Sherbert v. Verner controlling, it neglects the Court’s important observation that “[n]o question has been raised in this case concerning the sincerity of appellant’s religious beliefs.” 374 U.S. at 399 n.1, 83 S.Ct. at 1791 n.1.
The record in this case shows that claimant failed to meet the burden of proving that her aversion to surgery rests on sincere religious beliefs. There is, for example, the testimony of claimant’s minister, Reverend James Jackson, that the teachings of her particular church do not proscribe surgical procedures:
ALJ: Well, does your church, would it normally frown on Mrs. Lewis’ going in for surgery?
A: No.
App. at 36. As the majority note, Maj. Op., at 79 n.12, the tenets of the sect are relevant as evidence of Mrs. Lewis’ sincerity. More persuasive, however, is the claimant’s own testimony. She testified that she is a member of Reverend Jackson’s church, a congregation of the Church of God, App. at 35, and that she had previously submitted to gynecological surgery in 1960. Indeed, she had undergone a dilatation and curettage (D and C) procedure, one of the very procedures recommended to alleviate her present condition. See App. at 12. When specifically asked, on two separate occasions by her own counsel, if submitting to surgery would interfere with her religious beliefs, she answered “No”:
Q. Mrs. Lewis, you said earlier when Law Judge Brown was asking you questions, that your religious beliefs didn’t prohibit you from undergoing surgery. You have no religious feelings about not undergoing surgery?
A. No. I feel that, like I said, I know where I came from. I know how ill I was, and I know what happened to me, and I’m not going back on God. I know what He did for me.
App. at 49-50. Her counsel subsequently returned to this question, slightly rephrased, hoping for a more favorable answer:
Q. If you were made to undergo surgery, and you actually did undergo surgery, in general, do you feel that your religious beliefs would be interfered with if you were made to undergo surgery? To remove this tumor?
A. Would my religious beliefs be interfered with?
Q. Do you feel that they would be?
A. No. But I also feel if I have faith to believe I think I should be entitled to that.
Id. at 51. These statements tend to show that Mrs. Lewis’ decision to forego surgery was not based on a conflict between her religion and conventional medical practice.*
*83On the basis of this record, I would hold that claimant failed to sustain her burden of proof to excuse compliance with 20 C.F.R. § 404.1507 (1977), and I would affirm the judgment of the district court.

 These questions, it bears emphasis, were put to claimant by her counsel. The majority refer to these questions as “hypothetical questions posed to her [that] were difficult for her to comprehend, and gave rise to some confused answers, upon which the dissent relies.” Maj. Op., at 79, n.13.