Jones v. Astrue

851 F. Supp. 2d 1010, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 38678, 2012 WL 1085528
CourtDistrict Court, N.D. Texas
DecidedMarch 20, 2012
DocketNo. 4:11-CV-053-A
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 851 F. Supp. 2d 1010 (Jones v. Astrue) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, N.D. Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Jones v. Astrue, 851 F. Supp. 2d 1010, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 38678, 2012 WL 1085528 (N.D. Tex. 2012).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM OPINION and ORDER

JOHN McBRYDE, District Judge.

Before the court for decision is the complaint of plaintiff, Darrell L. Jones, Jr., filed under the authority of 42 U.S.C. § 405(g), complaining of the denial by defendant, Michael J. Astrue, Commissioner of Social Security Administration, (“Commissioner”) of his application for disability insurance benefits under sections 216(i) and 228 of the Social Security Act, 42 U.S.C. §§ 416(i) and 423. After having considered the filings of the parties, the administrative record, the proposed findings and conclusions and recommendation of Magistrate Judge Jeffrey L. Cureton, and pertinent legal authorities, the court has concluded that the decision of Commissioner should be affirmed.

I.

Background

Plaintiffs application for disability insurance benefits was denied by Commissioner initially and on reconsideration. Me requested a hearing before an administrative law judge, which was held May 11, 2010, and was followed by an unfavorable decision of the administrative law judge (“ALJ”) on June 11, 2010. Plaintiffs request for review was denied on November 23, 2010, with the result that the ALJ’s decision became the final decision of Commissioner about which plaintiff complains in this court.

Consistent with the normal practices of this court, plaintiffs complaint was referred to the magistrate judge for proposed findings and conclusions and a recommendation, and the parties were ordered to treat the application as an appeal by plaintiff from Commissioner’s ruling adverse to him. On February 8, 2012, 2012 WL 957690, the magistrate judge filed his proposed findings and conclusions and his recommendation (“PC & R”) that the Commissioner’s decision be reversed, and that the matter be remanded for further proceedings.

II.

Positions Taken by the Parties, And the FC & R

A. Plaintiffs Opening Brief

In his opening brief filed with the magistrate judge plaintiff started by defining as follows the issues he presented:

1. Did the Defendant Commissioner apply the proper legal standard to evaluate the Plaintiffs severe impairments?
2. Did the Defendant Commissioner consider all of the Plaintiffs vocationally significant impairments?
[1012]*10123. Did the Defendant Commissioner give due consideration to expert medical opinion evidence?

Pl.’s Br. at 1.1

While acknowledging that the ALJ found at step two of his five-step analysis2 that plaintiff had a severe impairment and proceeded to rule at a subsequent step of the analysis that denial of benefits was appropriate, plaintiff nevertheless maintained in support of his first issue that there should be a reversal and remand because the ALJ’s decision did not affirmatively disclose that the ALJ properly applied the standard for determining severity adopted by the Fifth Circuit in Stone v. Heckler, 752 F.2d 1099 (5th Cir.1985).3 In support of his second issue, plaintiff argued that the ALJ failed to consider in his overall analysis (a) a congestive heart failure condition claimed by plaintiff, and claimed symptoms resulting from the congestive heart failure, i.e., edema that caused his feet to swell, or (b) plaintiffs obesity. In support of his third issue, plaintiff argued that the ALJ failed to consider opinions of state agency physidans who, after having a review of the evidence, "determined that the Plaintiff was limited to only occasional climbing of ramps and stairs and occasional balancing, stooping, kneeling, crouching and crawling” and that he was “further limited to no climbing of ladders, ropes, or scaffolds.” PL’s Br. at 12.

B. Brief Filed by Commissioner in Response to Plaintiffs Brief

Commissioner responded to the first issue defined by plaintiff by pointing out that if there was any error on the part of the ALJ in the standard applied in determining severity of plaintiffs conditions, the error was harmless inasmuch as the ALJ found at step two that plaintiff had a severe impairment of uncontrolled hypertension, and then proceeded in his analysis through the remaining steps three, four, and five. Commissioner maintained as to plaintiffs second issue that plaintiff has not shown that his impairments, including obesity, produced functional limitations that exceeded the limitations the ALJ set forth in his RFC determination. In response to plaintiffs third issue, Commis[1013]*1013sioner noted that the opinions of the state agency reviewing physicians, Drs. Dolan and Spoor, supported the ALJ’s disability determination.

C. The FC & R

The magistrate judge recommended that Commissioner’s decision be reversed, and that the matter be remanded for further administrative proceedings consistent with the magistrate judge’s proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law. The recommendation of the magistrate judge was based in its entirety on the magistrate judge’s conclusion that the decision of the ALJ failed to disclose that the ALJ applied Stone’s severity standard at step two of the sequential evaluation process. Having been persuaded by rulings or recommendations previously made by other magistrate judges in the Northern District of Texas (adopted by the referring district judge) that the mere failure of an administrative law judge to apply the Stone standard at step two was fatal to the Commissioner’s decision, the magistrate judge recommended reversal and remand without considering whether the failure of the ALJ to comply with the Stone standard was harmless error.

The magistrate judge noted in the FC & R that the undersigned, who referred this case to the magistrate judge for proposed findings and conclusions and a recommendation, has repeatedly ruled under circumstances like those existing in this action that a Stone error of the kind found by the magistrate judge does not, standing alone, require reversal and remand. The footnote explanation was that, notwithstanding the referring district judge’s decisions to the contrary, the magistrate judge “feels compelled to continue to recommend remand on this issue based on current Fifth Circuit precedent and the rulings of the majority of judges in this district as set forth herein.”4 FC & R at 11 n. 5 (a footnote in which the magistrate judge cited to four of the recent decisions of the undersigned that have rejected recommendations of reversal and remand made by the magistrate judge under the same circumstances that exist in the instant action).

As has become the magistrate judge’s practice, the magistrate judge declined to consider plaintiffs second and third issues because of his conclusion that the resolution of plaintiffs Stone

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Bluebook (online)
851 F. Supp. 2d 1010, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 38678, 2012 WL 1085528, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/jones-v-astrue-txnd-2012.