Court Opinion

ID: 9467670
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 01:53:34.652429+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:40:27.452346
License: Public Domain

JERRE S. WILLIAMS, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
My reading of the record in this case makes it impossible to accept the conclusion of the majority that the decision of the administrative law judge is supported by substantial evidence. Under this record, the issue whether there is substantial evidence to support the decision being appealed need not be reached because of specific errors to the prejudice of the claimant which were made in the administrative hearing and decision. Further, because of error, the decision does not meet the substantial evidence requirement.
First. The Court concludes that the ALJ found that Mrs. Tew failed to make a prima facie case of disability. It rests this conclusion on the ALJ s statement that “claimant retains the functional capacity to lift, stand and walk within the functional demands of a women’s garment salesperson,” holding that this statement constituted a specific fact finding that Mrs. Tew is capable of doing her former work. I am convinced for several reasons that this statement by the ALJ was not a finding of fact but rather was merely part of the ALJ’s summary of the evidentiary presentation in this case. The paragraph in which the statement appears relates the findings of the physicians who reviewed Mrs. Tew’s medical records in connection with her disability claim. The latter part of the paragraph is an almost verbatim rendition of the important portions of the reports filed by those physicians. Nothing in the relevant passage suggests that the ALJ intended to adopt those findings as his own. Indeed, the Court’s holding that the ALJ’s statement constituted a finding that Mrs. Tew was capable of doing her former work is in conflict with the ALJ’s specific finding that she was qualified only to engage in “sedentary” employment.1
Sedentary employment is the lowest classification of employment above total disability in the regulations in terms of exertional requirements. See 20 C.F.R. § 404.-1510(b) (1980). Yet Mrs. Tew’s former job as women’s garment salesperson is classified as "light” work, a category of employment more demanding than “sedentary”. See id § 404.1510(e); 2 U.S. Dep’t of Labor, Dictionary of Occupational Titles 488 (3d ed.1965). Further, in finding that Tew was not disabled, the ALJ relied on the rules set out in Table 1 of 20 C.F.R., Subpart P, Appendix 2. This table is used to determine whether persons whose work capacity is limited to “sedentary” work are disabled or not disabled. The critical point is that this table is applied only “where an individual with a severe medically determinable *928physical or mental impairment(s) is not engaging in substantial gainful activity and the individual’s impairments) prevents the performance of his or her vocationally relevant past work.” 20 C.F.R., Subpart P, Appendix 2, § 200.00(a) (emphasis added). Thus, the ALJ had no authority to use this table at all unless he concluded that Mrs. Tew was incapable of performing her vocationally relevant past work.
Second. There is a conflict of testimony among doctors as to Tew’s disability. Two doctors who examined her concluded that she was disabled. One doctor said that she was not. There was an additional doctor who gave an opinion that she was capable of light work based solely upo'n the documents involved. The majority finds this to be support for a showing of the failure of Tew to make a prima facie case of disability by proving that she was unable to do the work that she had done in the past.
It can only be concluded that she did make such a prima facie case because, as is pointed out above, the administrative law judge concluded that she could engage only in “sedentary” work which was not her prior level of work but was a less demanding level. Certainly this conclusion had to be based upon her evidence, because it was not based upon evidence submitted on behalf of the Secretary.
Once a prima facie case was made, then the burden shifted to the Secretary to prove that there were jobs available which she was capable of filling. See, e. g., Western v. Harris, 633 F.2d 1204, 1206 (5th Cir. 1980); Flowers v. Harris, 616 F.2d 776, 778 (5th Cir. 1979); Lewis v. Weinberger, 515 F.2d 584, 587 (5th Cir. 1975). The ALJ never shifted this burden. There was a total failure on the part of the Secretary to introduce evidence of a vocational nature to show the specific kind of work in which Mrs. Tew could engage. Under its burden, once the prima facie case has been made, the government had to show the kind of work that Mrs. Tew could carry on in the “sedentary” classification. Evidence of vocational possibilities is required.
Third. The administrative law judge took the position that pain cannot be disabling unless “it is associated with relevant abnormal findings.” This clear implication that pain cannot be the basis of a disability absent objective medical evidence is contrary to established law. Benson v. Harris, 638 F.2d 1355 at 1357 (5th Cir. 1981); Simmons v. Harris, 602 F.2d 1233, 1236 (5th Cir. 1979). This conclusion alone invalidates the decision of the administrative law judge. Even accepting the conclusion of the Court that there is substantial evidence in the record to support the ALJ’s decision, that conclusion fails because the ALJ relied upon an erroneous principle of law that pain cannot be disabling unless associated with relevant abnormal findings. Mrs. Tew’s serious problems with pain were not weighed properly in the balance in determining if she is disabled. Having been based upon an erroneous legal principle, the decision of the factfinder must be reversed.
It must be concluded that the Secretary’s determination denying disability benefits, confirmed by the summary judgment of the district court, was lacking in substantial evidence and violated well established legal principles in the disposition of this disability claim. These conclusions are in accord with a similar case involving identical procedural failures decided by this Court January 9, 1981, Western v. Harris, 633 F.2d 1204.
This case should be remanded to the district court with direction that the district court remand the case to the Secretary for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.

. It is clear that the ALJ made a factual determination that Mrs. Tew was capable only of performing “sedentary” work. That her residual functional work capacity was limited to the “sedentary” category was pointed out three times by the ALJ, and a specific finding to that effect appears under the section of the ALJ’s opinion subtitled “Findings”. By contrast, the “finding” cited by the majority does not appear in the “Findings” section of the ALJ’s opinion, and nowhere else does the ALJ suggest that Mrs. Tew is capable of doing her former work.