Parrott v. Astrue

493 F. App'x 801
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
DecidedOctober 3, 2012
DocketNo. 12-1653
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 493 F. App'x 801 (Parrott v. Astrue) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Parrott v. Astrue, 493 F. App'x 801 (7th Cir. 2012).

Opinion

ORDER

Kendall Parrott applied for disability insurance benefits under Title II of the Social Security Act, claiming that a combination of impairments left him unable to work. Because he has since resumed working, his claim for benefits is now for a closed period running from the alleged onset date of his disability, August 2007, to March 2011, when he successfully completed a trial period at his new job.1 Slightly complicating matters is that in October 2008 Parrott turned 50 years old, triggering a more forgiving definition of disability. (The regulations provide that in general, a claimant who is between 50 and 54 is disabled if he cannot do his past work, is confined to sedentary work, and has no transferrable skills, while an otherwise identical person under 50 is not disabled. See 20 C.F.R. Pt. 404, Subpt. P., App. 2, Rule 201.14.) We conclude, however, that substantial evidence supports the ALJ’s determination that Parrott was not disabled at any time during the closed period, including after his 50th birthday, and so we affirm the judgment of the district court.

Parrott has numerous medical issues. He has a seizure disorder, type II diabetes, degenerative disc disease, depression, and an anxiety disorder. In 2004 he had surgery to remove an acoustic neuroma2 that was causing him headaches and problems with balance and hearing, and the surgery, though otherwise successful, left Parrott with mild, permanent hearing loss in one ear. None of these health problems caused Parrott to leave his job as director of the park district in suburban Harvey, Illinois, where he had begun working in the 1990s.

Then, in August 2007 Parrott and two other park-district employees were arrested and charged with wire fraud for misusing district credit cards. They were fired for this misconduct. Parrott became suicidal and was admitted to the hospital for a week. Three months later he was again feeling suicidal and was admitted for a few days.

Parrot applied for disability benefits at the end of 2007, alleging an onset date of August 2007. He contended that his combination of headaches, diabetes, back pain, [803]*803poor hearing, depression and anxiety, and neurological issues left him unable to hold a full-time job. His claim was denied, and he requested a hearing in front of an administrative law judge. Meanwhile, Par-rott entered into a plea bargain with the United States to settle his criminal case and received probation.

At his disability hearing in 2009, Parrott testified that he is unable to stand for more than two hours a day because of back and leg pain. He also described having constant headaches, difficulty hearing, memory problems, depression, and balance issues.

A psychologist, Dr. Larry Kravitz, reviewed Parrott’s mental-health records and testified as an expert that Parrott suffers from major depressive disorder and an anxiety disorder but that he has been relatively stable since the resolution of his legal problems. Dr. Kravitz assessed Parrott as able to interact with coworkers, superiors, and the public, at least under minimally stressful conditions.

A vocational expert also testified at the hearing, explaining that Parrot’s work for the park district was light, skilled work. The ALJ asked the vocational expert whether someone with Parrott’s age, education, work experience, and limitations could perform Parrott’s past work as a park-district administrator. The ALJ described Parrott as (1) having some college education but no degree; (2) confined to light work with no kneeling, crouching, or crawling; (8) able to interact with coworkers and the public, but not handle conflict (such as “taking customer complaints”); and (4) able to complete “detailed, but not complex tasks.” The expert said she did not think such a person could do Parrott’s past work.

The ALJ then asked whether Parrott would have developed skills that could be transferred to another skilled job, and the vocational expert replied that Parrott would have developed the transferable skills of “speaking, writing, coordinating; adjusting actions in relation to others; active listening; problem identification; information gathering.” These skills, the expert said, would allow him to work as a cashier in a hotel or similar business or as a residence supervisor. The expert testified that these jobs also would be available to an individual confined to sedentary work rather than light work. The ALJ did not ask the expert whether these jobs were available to someone with partial hearing loss in one ear.

In the ALJ’s decision, she found at step one of the familiar five-step sequential analysis that Parrott was not engaged in gainful employment. At step two she found that he was suffering from the following severe, medically determinable impairments: “status post acoustic neuroma removal, degenerative disc disease, diabetes, major depressive disorder, anxiety disorder.” At step three she found that none of Parrott’s impairments met a listing.

The ALJ next assessed Parrott’s residual functional capacity (“RFC”), as required before moving on to step four. She began her analysis by explaining that Parrott’s testimony about his symptoms was “not fully credible.” He had described “constant” headaches during the hearing, though his medical records reflected that he complained of having only occasional headaches, and he had testified that he searched for full-time work after he was fired, which suggested to the ALJ that Parrott’s unemployment was unrelated to his health problems.

She also discussed the report of Par-rott’s primary physician, Dr. Albert Reynolds, who opined that Parrott could not stand or walk for more than two hours a day and that he suffered from neurological, auditory, visual, and manipulative limitations that precluded full-time work. The [804]*804ALJ gave this report “no weight” because Dr. Reynold’s assessment of Parrott’s manipulative limitations was unexplained and was contradicted by Parrott himself, who denied having trouble using his hands. Additionally, the standing and walking limitations that Dr. Reynold’s identified were, the ALJ pointed out, contradicted by the objective evidence that Parrott’s gait was normal. The ALJ did, however, credit a post-hearing report from Parrott’s neurologist, Dr. Kevin Fagan, who explained that Parrott exhibited “Babinski’s sign,” an abnormal reflex. See Babinski’s Reflex, MedlinePlus, http://www.nlm.nih.gov/ medlineplus/ency/article/003294.htm (last visited Sept. 20, 2012).

In regard to Parrott’s mental health, the ALJ concluded that Parrott could do “detailed but not complex” tasks and could interact with the public under minimally stressful circumstances. She gave the expert testimony of Dr. Kravitz “very significant weight” because he was able to consider all of the evidence in the record, but she gave “little weight” to the opinion of Dr. Rian Rowles, the physician who was treating Parrott’s mental-health problems. Dr. Rowles had pointed to Parrott’s past suicidal ideation as evidence that he could not hold a full-time job, but his own treatment notes documented significant improvement in Parrott’s mental health after his legal troubles were resolved. The ALJ also noted that Parrott suffers from mild hearing loss in one ear but that he had no difficulty hearing during the administrative hearing.

Based her analysis of the evidence, the ALJ determined that Parrott’s RFC limits him to sedentary work.

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Bluebook (online)
493 F. App'x 801, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/parrott-v-astrue-ca7-2012.