Court Opinion

ID: 9911193
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-12-19 18:00:58.057094+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:56:25.452906
License: Public Domain

In the

    United States Court of Appeals
                For the Seventh Circuit
                    ____________________
No. 22-1972
CHRIS A. MARTIN,
                                               Plaintiff-Appellant,
                                v.

KILOLO KIJAKAZI,
      Acting Commissioner of Social Security,
                                        Defendant-Appellee.
                    ____________________

        Appeal from the United States District Court for the
         Southern District of Indiana, Indianapolis Division.
    No. 1:21-cv-00001-MG-SEB — Mario Garcia, Magistrate Judge.
                    ____________________

  ARGUED FEBRUARY 7, 2023 — DECIDED DECEMBER 19, 2023
                ____________________

   Before HAMILTON, BRENNAN, and JACKSON-AKIWUMI,
Circuit Judges.
   HAMILTON, Circuit Judge. Plaintiﬀ-appellant Chris Martin
hurt his back at work in June 2016 and stopped working. He
did not seek medical attention for the injury until February
2018. He applied for Social Security disability beneﬁts. After
a hearing, an administrative law judge for the Social Security
Administration found that as of February 2018, Martin was
2                                                  No. 22-1972

disabled under the Social Security Act’s stringent deﬁnition.
See 42 U.S.C. § 423(d). Based on that disability ﬁnding, Martin
was awarded supplemental security income. He was denied
more generous disability insurance beneﬁts, however, be-
cause his insured status for those beneﬁts had expired on De-
cember 31, 2017, about ﬁve weeks before he was found to have
been disabled.
    Martin has appealed. He argues that the ALJ should have
consulted an additional medical expert to try to determine
whether he was disabled earlier, before his insured status
lapsed. As explained below, Social Security Ruling 18–01p
gives an ALJ discretion to decide whether to consult an addi-
tional medical expert to answer that question. We agree with
the district court that this ALJ did not abuse her discretion in
deciding not to consult another medical expert here. We af-
ﬁrm the denial of disability insurance beneﬁts.
I. Factual and Procedural Background
   While lifting a heavy bag at work in June 2016, plaintiﬀ-
appellant Chris A. Martin injured his back. Martin stopped
working, but he did not see a doctor for more than a year and
a half, ﬁnding relief in the meantime from several self-help
measures. He ﬁrst saw a doctor for the injury on February 5,
2018. In May 2018, he was diagnosed by medical imaging as
having a spine disorder. Later that year, Martin applied for
supplemental security income beneﬁts and disability insur-
ance beneﬁts under Titles II and XVI of the Social Security Act.
He asserted that he had become disabled back in June 2016.
After two initial denials, Martin’s case was heard before an
administrative law judge.
No. 22-1972                                                    3

    At the hearing, Martin testiﬁed that after his 2016 injury
but before early 2018, he was able to “baby” his back. He
would stop whatever he was doing to avoid “tweak[ing]” his
back. He would lie in bed to avoid putting pressure on his
body. He would use hot and cold treatments to ease his pain.
Slowly but surely, he said, he got “a little better.” Martin tes-
tiﬁed that he was doing “normal everyday stuﬀ” and was
“back to walking two miles a day.” But in early 2018, his back
pain suddenly became worse. He visited a doctor while using
a wheelchair and wearing a back brace. A few months later,
medical imaging showed he had a spine disorder. He applied
for disability beneﬁts later that year.
    Martin asserts that he became disabled as of June 2016, but
he provided the ALJ no medical evidence indicating he was
disabled earlier than his ﬁrst doctor’s appointment in Febru-
ary 2018. The ALJ did not consult an additional medical ex-
pert to determine whether Martin might have become disa-
bled at an earlier time, particularly while he was still insured
for purposes of disability insurance beneﬁts.
    The ALJ’s ruling was partially favorable and partially un-
favorable for Martin. The favorable part was that Martin was
disabled as of February 5, 2018, the date he ﬁrst saw a doctor
about his back, albeit three months before the imaging used
to diagnose his spine disorder. This ﬁnding made Martin eli-
gible for supplemental security income. In the unfavorable
portion, the ALJ denied Martin’s application for disability in-
surance beneﬁts, in part because objective medical evidence
did not support a disability onset date before his date last in-
sured, which was December 31, 2017. See 42 U.S.C. § 423(c)
(criteria for insured status).
4                                                     No. 22-1972

   The ALJ considered Martin’s testimony about his pain be-
fore the ﬁrst doctor’s appointment. The ALJ ultimately found,
however, that Martin’s evidence did not support an earlier
disability onset date. The ALJ wrote that Martin’s symptoms
had improved in 2016 and that the record was “void of docu-
mentation of any medical treatment” prior to 2018.
    On appeal by Martin, the Social Security Appeals Council
aﬃrmed the ALJ’s decision. Martin then sought judicial re-
view in the district court. He argued that the ALJ erred by fail-
ing to consult an additional medical expert to interpret medi-
cal evidence and by ignoring Martin’s testimony about his
symptoms. Presiding with the consent of the parties under 28
U.S.C. § 636(c), Magistrate Judge Garcia aﬃrmed the partial
denial of beneﬁts. The court reasoned that Social Security Rul-
ing 18–01p did not require the ALJ to call an additional med-
ical expert. The court noted that the ALJ had speciﬁcally ad-
dressed Martin’s testimony about his symptoms but had ulti-
mately found he had not proven an earlier disability onset
date. Martin has appealed, arguing that the ALJ erred by not
consulting an additional medical expert and not crediting his
testimony about his past symptoms.
II. Analysis
    A. Standard of Review
    On judicial review of a disability beneﬁt decision, district
courts and we apply the same deferential standard of review.
Gedatus v. Saul, 994 F.3d 893, 900 (7th Cir. 2021). We will re-
verse an ALJ’s decision only if it is the result of an error of law
or if it is unsupported by substantial evidence. Id.; see also 42
U.S.C. § 405(g) (“The ﬁndings of the Commissioner of Social
Security as to any fact, if supported by substantial evidence,
No. 22-1972                                                   5

shall be conclusive….”). Substantial evidence is “such rele-
vant evidence as a reasonable mind might accept as adequate
to support a conclusion.” Biestek v. Berryhill, 587 U.S. —, —,
139 S. Ct. 1148, 1154 (2019). The ALJ need not address every
piece of evidence, but she must build an accurate and logical
bridge from the evidence to her conclusion. E.g., Cliﬀord v. Ap-
fel, 227 F.3d 863, 872 (7th Cir. 2000).
   B. The ALJ’s Discretion to Consult a Medical Expert Under
      SSR 18–01p
    The ALJ found Martin was not disabled before February 5,
2018 in substantial part because no objective medical evidence
tended to show that he had a medically determinable impair-
ment before that date. Martin argues that the ALJ should have
sought another medical opinion to help determine when he
became disabled. This issue in Martin’s case is governed by
SSR 18–01p, which took eﬀect on October 2, 2018. Under that
ruling, an ALJ may, but is not required to, consult a medical
expert to determine whether the claimant became disabled
before the dates of his earliest relevant medical records. This
much is clear from both the text and the history of the ruling.
    Before 2018, a prior ruling instructed ALJs how to deter-
mine the disability onset date. See SSR 83–20, 1983 WL 31249
(1983). If a claimant was found disabled but there was no
medical evidence as to the precise onset date, and if the disa-
bling impairment seemed to have occurred before the date of
the ﬁrst recorded medical examination, the ALJ was encour-
aged to “‘call on the services of a medical advisor’ to help in
making the necessary inferences.” Lichter v. Bowen, 814 F.2d
430, 434 (7th Cir. 1987), citing SSR 83–20, 1983 WL 31249 at *3.
6                                                             No. 22-1972

    In 2018, however, that aspect of SSR 83–20 was replaced
by SSR 18–01p, which took immediate eﬀect. 83 Fed. Reg.
49613-01 (Oct. 2, 2018). Under SSR 18–01p, an ALJ is permitted
to consult a medical expert to infer an earlier disability onset
date: “if the ALJ needs to infer the date that the claimant ﬁrst
met the statutory deﬁnition of disability, he or she may call on
the services” of a medical expert. Id. at 49615 (emphasis
added). An ALJ is not required to do so, however: “Neither
the claimant nor his or her representative can require an ALJ
to call on the services of [a medical expert] to assist in infer-
ring the date that the claimant ﬁrst met the statutory deﬁni-
tion of disability.” Id. at 49616. The decision to consult a med-
ical expert is “always at the ALJ’s discretion.” Id. Because SSR
18–01p applies to Martin’s case, the ALJ did not err by not
consulting an additional medical expert. 1
    Martin also argues that the ALJ erred by discounting his
symptoms predating his relationship with his primary care
physician, again citing SSR 18–01p. The ruling explains that
the “date [an ALJ] ﬁnd[s] that the claimant ﬁrst met the statu-
tory deﬁnition of disability may predate the claimant’s … ear-
liest medical records.” SSR 18–01p, 83 Fed. Reg. at 49615. Mar-
tin points out correctly that, as long as objective medical evi-
dence supports a ﬁnding of disability and the onset date can-
not reasonably be inferred with medical evidence alone, an
ALJ may consider non-medical sources. This is so even if ad-
ditional medical evidence does not exist, was never created,
or was destroyed. SSR 18–01p, 83 Fed. Reg. at 49615; see 20
C.F.R. § 404.1513(a)(4) (agency may consider evidence from

    1 The Ninth Circuit took a similar view of SSR 18–01p in a non-

precedential order, Hester v. Kijakazi, 2022 WL 12325226 at *1 (9th Cir. Oct.
21, 2022).
No. 22-1972                                                               7

non-medical sources). Thus, Martin contends, the ALJ had
discretion to assign greater weight to his symptoms, and he
argues she made a legal error by believing she did not have
such discretion.
    We agree that the ALJ had that discretion, but we see no
evidence that this ALJ misunderstood her legal power or dis-
cretion. In addition, this is not a case “where the claimant was
undoubtedly disabled for some substantial period of time be-
fore he sought medical attention” and the ALJ refused to con-
sider other evidence. See Pugh v. Bowen, 870 F.2d 1271, 1278
(7th Cir. 1989) (aﬃrming denial of beneﬁts), citing Lichter, 814
F.2d at 434–35 (relying on earlier SSR 83–20 and reversing de-
nial of beneﬁts). The ALJ considered Martin’s allegations of
pain supporting an earlier onset date but found that an earlier
date was not supported by the medical evidence.
    The ALJ acknowledged Martin’s testimony that he had
hurt his back in 2016. The ALJ then compared his testimony
with his failure to seek treatment because he had been feeling
better. See SSR 16–3p, 82 Fed. Reg. 49462, 49466 (Oct. 25, 2017)
(ALJ may consider whether a person’s symptoms were not
“severe enough to prompt him … to seek treatment, or the
symptoms [were] relieved with over the counter medica-
tions”). The ALJ compared Martin’s symptoms with the lack
of earlier medical evidence substantiating a medically deter-
minable impairment. See SSR 16-3p, 82 Fed. Reg. at 49464
(ALJ must consider whether applicant’s symptoms are “con-
sistent with the medical signs and laboratory ﬁndings of rec-
ord”). 2

   2 Martin also argues that the ALJ erred by implicitly rejecting the opin-

ions of agency consulting physicians on the theory that they implied he
8                                                           No. 22-1972

    At bottom, Martin argues that the ALJ abused her discre-
tion by misunderstanding and misapplying SSR 18–01p. We
see no indication of such a legal error. See Pugh, 870 F.2d at
1274, 1278–79 (aﬃrming denial of beneﬁts even though ALJ
did not refer to SSR 83–20 but “nevertheless conducted the
requisite analysis”). The issue before us is “whether the cho-
sen onset date is supported by substantial evidence, not
whether an earlier date could have been supported.” Id. The
onset date found by the ALJ certainly had substantial evi-
dence supporting it. And under SSR 18–01p, the ALJ was not
required to keep digging for further evidence to support an
earlier onset date, particularly in light of the evidence that
Martin’s condition had improved or was managed by self-
help during 2017. Accordingly, the ALJ did not act contrary to
law or abuse her discretion by declining to have a medical ex-
pert explore further the onset date of Martin’s disability.
    The judgment of the district court is
                                                           AFFIRMED.

had been restricted to light work before 2018. The consulting physicians
did not try to determine Martin’s past condition. They reported Martin’s
“current evaluation.” Those current evaluations noted there were no ret-
rospective medical opinions available. The ALJ did not “play doctor” by
comparing current test results with earlier treatment records. No earlier
treatment records were available at all. Cf. McHenry v. Berryhill, 911 F.3d
866, 871 (7th Cir. 2018) (vacating denial of benefits where ALJ interpreted
MRI results without expert medical testimony). In any event, the ALJ dis-
cussed these prior medical findings in deciding that Martin was disabled
as of February 2018.