Lydia L. Kirby v. John W. Gardner, Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare

369 F.2d 302, 1966 U.S. App. LEXIS 4175
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit
DecidedDecember 2, 1966
Docket8755
StatusPublished
Cited by22 cases

This text of 369 F.2d 302 (Lydia L. Kirby v. John W. Gardner, Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Lydia L. Kirby v. John W. Gardner, Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, 369 F.2d 302, 1966 U.S. App. LEXIS 4175 (10th Cir. 1966).

Opinion

SETH, Circuit Judge.

The appellant applied for social security disability benefits under 42 U.S. C.A. §§ 416, 423. The hearing examiner denied her claim, concluding that she had failed to establish her disability. The Appeals Council of the Social Security Administration declined to review the hearing examiner’s denial of benefits, and the determination became final. Claimant obtained review in the United States District Court, the court affirmed the denial of benefits, and claimant has taken this appeal.

The proper scope of judicial review of these administrative proceedings and the authority of the Secretary are fully described in Gardner v. Bishop, 362 F.2d 917 (10th Cir.), Celebrezze v. Warren, 339 F.2d 833 (10th Cir.), and in Gardner v. Brian, 369 F.2d 443 (Tenth Circuit, No. 8342, November 29, 1966), and there is no need to repeat here these standards.

The record shows that appellant was fifty-three years old when she filed her claim in September 1963, was married, and had a family. Her formal education ended with completion of the fourth grade, she has limited ability to write, reads only an occasional letter, and her work experience, except for a week or two as a dishwasher, was solely with the Boeing Company, an aircraft manufacturer in Wichita, Kansas, for whom she worked from 1952 until April 1963. During her employment with Boeing she was assigned to various jobs, but her last job was as a tape cutter, which involved carrying rolls of tape, applying the tape to parts with a heated iron, and cutting the tape with a knife.

In April 1963 the appellant became ill. Her general complaints, some of which predated this illness, were pains in her back, neck and hands, shortness of breath, pain in her abdomen, and dizziness. A number of medical reports by several physicians are included in the record. While these reports are not in complete agreement as to appellant’s physical and *304 mental state they reveal these objective conditions: mild pulmonary fibrosis; a small, reducible hiatal hernia; osteoar-thritic changes in her hands, primarily in the thumb and index finger; and a menopausal syndrome characterized by anxiety, nervousness, and occasional periods of vagueness and confusion. The appellant’s weight dropped from 145 to 120 pounds between April 1963 and the hearing, though it does not appear that she was underweight for a woman of her height and physique. The appellant also complained of continuous pain and discomfort.

After her illness in April 1963, and after repeated visits to her doctor, her physician released her to return to work at Boeing with the following restrictions: she was not to work (1) in areas where she was exposed to toxic dust or fumes, or (2) in areas of low air pressure, and (3) she was not to lift objects weighing more than 30 to 35 pounds. She attempted to return to work, and the doctors at Boeing cleared the appellant to resume work under the above limitations, but the company had no work being performed suitable for a person with these limitations.

The hearing examiner, in denying the appellant’s application for disability benefits, accepted the foregoing limitations, and also assumed that appellant was unable to do fine manipulative work with her hands owing to an arthritic condition. It also appears that the hearing examiner assumed that the appellant’s physical impairments required that any future employment be sedentary. He found that the appellant was disabled from performing her usual employment at the Boeing Company, and this is undisputed here.

The hearing examiner concluded, and the Secretary agreed, that the appellant was not entitled to disability benefits because, despite her condition, she was still able to “engage in substantial gainful activity.” Appellant, on the other hand, argues that the cumulative effect of her impairments, physical and mental, cause her to be disabled from engaging in any substantial gainful activity.

This court’s review of the Secretary’s final decision is limited as above described, and the credibility of the applicant with respect to complaints of pain may be weighed by the hearing examiner. Consideration may also be given to motivation and objective medical findings to determine the extent of the applicant’s pain. Celebrezze v. Warren, supra; Gardner v. Brian, supra.

In view of the objective medical findings in the record and the hearing examiner’s questioning of the appellant, we cannot say that he improperly concluded that the appellant’s assertion of continuous and intense pain was exaggerated. We cannot believe, however, that the hearing examiner meant that the applicant suffered no pain. Instead we must assume that he considered that appellant suffered from pain which would be consistent with the objective medical findings. He concluded that the appellant was not experiencing pain in occurrence and intensity sufficient to be disabling. We cannot say .that his conclusion is wrong.

The record supports the Secretary’s position that the appellant is able to perform work subject to the following restrictions: the work must be sedentary ; it must not require fine manipulation with the hands; it must not require lifting of objects weighing more than 30 to 35 pounds; and the work must not expose the appellant to toxic dust and fumes or to low air pressure. The foregoing employment restrictions so derived thus define and limit the gainful activity in which appellant may engage. The test of capability must be related to the particular claimant. Dvorak v. Celebrezze, 345 F.2d 894 (10th Cir.). Consideration must also be given to the appellant’s age, education, training and experience, as well as to her mental capabilities. Celebrezze v. Warren, supra; Gardner v. Brian, supra.

When the appellant so established that she was disabled from performing her usual work, the burden was on the Secretary to go forward with *305 proof of the reasonable availability to appellant of other work for which she was suited. Gardner v. Brian, supra; Haley v. Celebrezze, 351 F.2d 516 (10th Cir.); Celebrezze v. Warren, supra. The reasonable availability of suitable work of course depends on the facts of each case, and certainly does not mean that a job must be found for the claimant.

In the case at bar, unlike the testimony in Gardner v. Brian, supra, a vocational consultant testified that work suitable for claimant was being performed in the Wichita area where she lived with her husband and daughters. The consultant specifically took note of the appellant’s age, her low-normal range of intelligence, her fourth grade education, her prior training and work experience, and testified that suitable work for her was being performed in Wichita at the Coleman Company. This work at Coleman involved subassembly of camp stoves and similar products.

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Bluebook (online)
369 F.2d 302, 1966 U.S. App. LEXIS 4175, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/lydia-l-kirby-v-john-w-gardner-secretary-of-health-education-and-ca10-1966.