Court Opinion

ID: 9486870
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 12:02:58.937242+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:51:59.104716
License: Public Domain

LOKEN, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
The ultimate issue in this ease is whether Mary Keller has a listed impairment entitling her to supplemental security income benefits on account of disability. Under the Secretary’s regulations, Keller has a listed impairment if she has a verbal IQ of 60 to 70, which is undisputed, and if she also has “a physical or other mental impairment imposing additional and significant work-related limitation of Junction.” 20 C.F.R. Part 404, subpt. P, App. 1, § 12.05C (emphasis added).
The court holds that this regulation is satisfied if the additional impairment has an “effect on a claimant’s ability to perform basic work [that] is .more than slight or minimal,” quoting Cook v. Bowen, 797 F.2d 687, 690 (8th Cir.1986). In my view, the court has thereby rewritten the Secretary’s regulation without justification. Using the normal meanings of the words, proof that an additional impairment imposes a “significant work-related limitation of function” requires a far greater showing than proof that it has a “more than slight or minimal” effect on one’s “ability to perform basic work.”
A careful review of Cook and the cases cited in Cook reveals that the “more than slight or minimal” language had a limited and appropriate origin. Those courts used that phrase simply to distinguish the additional limitation that must be proved under § 12.05C from a “severe” impairment, as the *860word severe is used elsewhere in the regulations. See Edwards v. Heckler, 755 F.2d 1513, 1515 (11th Cir.1985). Because § 12.-05C addresses the combined effect of limited IQ and an additional impairment, it is proper to interpret the regulation as requiring something less than a severe additional impairment. But here the court has gone far beyond the intent of Cook. It has turned this judicially-created phrase into a burden-reducing substitute for the governing language in the regulation. That analytic sleight-of-hand is inappropriate.
In every case cited by the court and by Keller that applied the more-than-slight-or-minimal standard, the claimant had a substantial work history, the requisite limited IQ, and a significant, medically established additional impairment. See Cook, 797 F.2d at 690 (“a nervous condition, a stiff neck from an auto accident and possibly some arthritis, pulled muscles in his back, and a seizure disorder”); Nieves v. Secretary of Health & Human Services, 775 F.2d 12, 14 (1st Cir.1985) (“severe chronic myositis”); Edwards, 755 F.2d at 1515 (“chronic obstructive lung disease”); Estelle v. Secretary of Health & Human Services, 751 F.Supp. 110, 112 (W.D.La.1989) (“[bjasieally Mr. Estelle has one good eye”). Those claimants had § 12-05C listed impairments under the plain language of the regulation, and the courts did not consider whether the more-than-slight- or-minimal standard, if applied in closer cases, would effectively rewrite the regulation.
In this case, Keller has never worked and has offered no medical evidence supporting her claim that her headaches “impos[e] additional and significant work-related limitation of function.” No doctor has ever prescribed more than aspirin for her headaches, and indeed that is the only medication she has taken. There is record support for the ALJ’s finding that her daily activities are inconsistent with her testimony as to the duration, frequency, and intensity of her headache pain. On this record, Keller can have a § 12.05C listed impairment only if the more-than-slight-or-minimal standard is applied so as to significantly amend the Secretary’s regulation. In my view, if § 12.05C of the regulations is properly applied, there is substantial evidence in the record as a whole supporting the ALJ’s determination that Keller has no listed impairment and is not disabled. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.