Court Opinion

ID: 9479355
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 07:15:33.730865+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:46:57.741356
License: Public Domain

SNEED, Circuit Judge,
concurring separately:
I concur in Judge Reinhardt’s opinion because the law of this circuit requires that I do so.
My difficulty with the case primarily has its origin in the manner in which this circuit deals with “excess pain” cases. These cases raise three substantial issues. The first is whether Congress has authorized the rejection of a requirement that excess pain be supported by objective medical findings. The second is that, if Congress has authorized this circuit’s approach to excess pain, under what, if any, circumstances will specific and justifiable findings exist that will justify a rejection of an excess pain claim by an AU. Finally, there is the issue whether our practice of directing that benefits be paid, upon our finding that the claim of excess pain has not been justifiably rejected, is proper.
Turning to the first issue, in 1984, Congress amended 42 U.S.C. § 423(d)(5)(A) (Supp. IV 1986), to read as follows:
An individual shall not be considered to be under a disability unless he furnishes such medical and other evidence of the existence thereof as the Secretary may require. An individual’s statement as to pain or other symptoms shall not alone be conclusive evidence of disability as defined in this section; there must be medical signs and findings, established by medically acceptable clinical or laboratory diagnostic techniques, which show the existence of a medical impairment that results from anatomical, physiological, or psychological abnormalities which could reasonably be expected to produce the pain or other symptoms alleged and which, when considered with all evidence required to be furnished under this paragraph (including statements of the individual or his physician as to the intensity and persistence of such pain or other symptoms which may reasonably be accepted as consistent with medical signs and findings), would lead to a conclusion that the individual is under a disability. Objective medical evidence of pain or other symptoms established by medically acceptable clinical or laboratory techniques (for example, deteriorating nerve or muscle tissue) must be considered in reaching a conclusion as to whether the individual is under a disability.
To read the language is to suspect that an untidy compromise was reached that does not satisfactorily resolve the first issue described above. Its enactment was in response to what Congress thought were administrative abuses in this area by the Reagan administration. Both Senators Moyni-han and Levin spoke of the role of pain in determining disability. Senator Moynihan said, “[q]uite often an individual may suffer from excruciating, debilitating pain that is impossible to measure objectively. As *746yet, SSA has no guidelines for the evaluation of subjective evidence of pain, in determining disability.” 130 Cong.Rec. 13,234 (1984). Senator Levin said
“[the] pain standard does not require evidence or a finding of a medical condition as a cause of the pain, because we recognize that an underlying medical condition cannot always be identified. [But we do not] take the position that benefits should be granted on the subjective evidence of the disabled individual alone. Our pain standard would require medical findings of the presence of pain, without the need to show a medical condition causing the pain.
130 Cong.Rec. 13,237 (1984).
I conclude that the 1984 amendment can be read to justify our approach to the excess pain issue, but that it need not be so read. On the other hand, the observations of Senators Moynihan and Levin support our treatment of the excess pain issue.
My reluctance to embrace wholeheartedly the treatment of this issue is rooted in my belief that it is extremely difficult for the Secretary to refute successfully an excess pain claim. Thus, in answer to the second issue set forth above, I am hard-pressed to describe what showing the Secretary must make to refute an excess pain claim. It is possible, of course, for the Secretary to enlist the investigatory resources of the FBI to ascertain the genuineness of these claims. This does not strike me as a reasonable course of action. Nor does the creation of a private corps of investigators by the Secretary appear to be a desirable option. While it is possible for the AU to find that the excess pain claim is not credible on the basis of the medical evidence and his evaluation of the claimant’s truthfulness, such a finding might be considered as inconsistent with our excess pain doctrine.
In this opinion we say that “The AU must ‘convincingly justify his rejection’ of the claimant’s excess pain testimony.” While it is perhaps arguable that this apparently insurmountable standard is no different from that which this court has always employed, it is a fact that our standard has experienced both adjectival and adverbial enhancement. In Murray v. Heckler, 722 F.2d 499, 502 (9th Cir.1983), we required the AU to make a “specific finding” regarding a claimant’s pain. Now we require that the Secretary make a specific finding to justify his disbelief of a claimant’s pain testimony. See, e.g., Gamer v. Secretary of HHS, 815 F.2d 1275, 1279 (9th Cir.1987); Martinez v. Heckler, 807 F.2d 771, 773 (9th Cir.1985); Green v. Heckler, 803 F.2d 528, 532 (9th Cir.1986); Cotton v. Bowen, 799 F.2d 1403, 1407 (9th Cir.1986) (per curiam). Adjectival enhancement appeared in Varney v. Secretary of HHS, 859 F.2d 1396, 1399 (9th Cir.1988) (Varney II), when we stated that the finding of the AU must be specific and justifiable. In Bellamy v. Secretary of HHS, 755 F.2d 1380, 1382 (9th Cir.1985), and in our opinion today, we employed adverbial enhancement when we faulted the AU because he “did not convincingly justify his rejection” of the pain testimony. The appearance of “convincingly” suggests that its companion adverb “clearly” will soon follow. Perhaps these adjectives and adverbs add nothing to the burden of the Secretary; but, if so, their presence is “clearly and convincingly unjustified.”
The final question has to do with proper disposition of a case in which the AU has failed to carry his burden, whatever it may be, with respect to “excess pain” claims. Presently the practice is to direct the Secretary to pay the disability payments to the claimant. This deprives the Secretary of the opportunity to try again to meet his burden. The determination of whether this is an appropriate response may well turn on whether one believes that the Secretary’s burden ever can be successfully carried. If it cannot be, as I suspect is the case, it does little good to remand the ease to the Secretary. On the other hand, were it possible for the Secretary to carry his burden, a remand would be entirely proper. Inasmuch as the remand in this ease is with the direction that the benefits be awarded, and because I am dubious about the Secretary ever being able to rebut an excess *747pain claim satisfactorily, I concur in that portion of the opinion as well.