Court Opinion

ID: 9492386
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 14:40:13.05794+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:55:17.073872
License: Public Domain

LOKEN, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
Robin Gasaway’s application for social security disability benefits did not allege a mental impairment. The issue did not arise at her hearing before the administrative law judge. Ms. Gasaway’s attorney did not raise the issue in his letter brief to the Commissioner’s Appeals Council. Yet the court remands because Ms. Gasaway’s Permanent Record from Nettleton High School records a Verbal IQ of 69 on a test administered in January 1974, when Ms. Gasaway was fifteen years old. Though Social Security ALJs have an obligation to develop an adequate record, in my view this antiquated documentary tidbit did not cast sufficient doubt on Ms. Gasaway’s many years of satisfactory work as an adult to require the ALJ to pursue the ■mental .impairment' issue sua sponte. I would affirm the district court because there is substantial evidence in the record as a whole supporting the ALJ’s decision. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.