Reimer v. O'Malley

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
• Decided: December 5, 2024
• Docket: 23-2620
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS DEC 5 2024 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

ALEXANDRIA REIMER, No. 23-2620 D.C. No. Plaintiff - Appellant, 3:22-cv-05860-GJL v. MEMORANDUM* MARTIN J. O'MALLEY, Commissioner of Social Security,

Defendant - Appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington Grady J. Leupold, Magistrate Judge, Presiding

Submitted December 3, 2024** Seattle, Washington

Before: BOGGS***, McKEOWN, and R. NELSON, Circuit Judges.

Alexandria Reimer appeals the district court’s order affirming the agency’s

denial of disability benefits after April 30, 2020. We have jurisdiction under 28

* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. ** The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2). *** The Honorable Danny J. Boggs, United States Circuit Judge for the Court of Appeals, 6th Circuit, sitting by designation. U.S.C. § 1291. We affirm.

Reimer received a partially favorable decision at his hearing before an

Administrative Law Judge (ALJ). The ALJ found that he had been disabled from

his amended onset date until April 30, 2020, but that he also experienced medical

improvement enabling him to work after the end of the closed period. Though

Reimer submitted additional evidence to the Appeals Council, his request for an

administrative review was declined, making the ALJ’s decision the final decision

of the Commissioner for judicial review.

Reimer contends that the ALJ’s decision “never established how the medical

improvement date was established by signs, symptoms, and laboratory findings in

the record,” because it mistakenly compared two Residual Functional Capacity

(RFC) assessments and treated them as factual evidence. This argument

misconstrues the ALJ’s opinion: The finding of medical improvement was not

based on a comparison of the RFCs, and the ALJ only compared the RFCs to

confirm that the medical improvement was “related to the ability to work.” Such

analysis merely reflects due consideration of the fact that medical improvements

unrelated to Reimer’s ability to work would not have caused any discontinuation

of benefits. 20 C.F.R. § 416.994(b)(1)(ii). To establish the medical improvement

date of May 1, 2020, the ALJ pointed to “largely conservative treatment”;

“improvements in symptoms with such conservative treatment”; and “clinical

2 23-2620 findings . . . consistently not[ing] intact memory, normal attention, intact judgment

and thought processes, and unremarkable thought content.” These references

provide substantial evidence. Coleman v. Saul, 979 F.3d 751, 755 (9th Cir. 2020).

Next, Reimer asserts that the ALJ erred in her evaluation of (1) Reimer’s

subjective symptom testimony and (2) the medical opinions of Dr. Ruddell and

Counselor Perretz-Rosales. With respect to the former, “the ALJ must provide

specific, clear, and convincing reasons which explain why the medical evidence is

inconsistent with the claimant’s subjective symptom testimony.” Ferguson v.

O’Malley, 95 F.4th 1194, 1200 (9th Cir. 2024). This standard “requires an ALJ to

show his work.” Smartt v. Kijakazi, 53 F.4th 489, 499 (9th Cir. 2022). However,

the ALJ is not required “to perform a line-by-line exegesis of the claimant’s

testimony” or “to draft dissertations when denying benefits.” Lambert v. Saul, 980

F.3d 1266, 1277 (9th Cir. 2020). Here, the ALJ met the standard by identifying

various reasons to cast doubt on the “intensity, persistence, and limiting effects” of

Reimer’s alleged mental-health issues.

ALJs are required to articulate how persuasive they find medical opinions,

given their “supportability” and “consistency.” 20 C.F.R. § 416.920c(b). When an

ALJ finds a medical opinion to be unpersuasive, that determination need only be

supported by substantial evidence. Woods v. Kijakazi, 32 F.4th 785, 792 (9th Cir.

2022) (displacing previous Ninth Circuit precedent requiring ALJs to provide

3 23-2620 “specific and legitimate” reasons for discrediting medical evidence). That is

precisely what the ALJ did here. The decision articulates not only why Dr.

Ruddell’s 2019 assessment of marked limitations was persuasive during the closed

period (i.e., because it contained findings of “paranoid content of thought,

depressed mood, and impaired recent memory”), but also why the 2021 assessment

was unpersuasive for the period thereafter (i.e., because it was inconsistent with

“treatment records . . . noting improvements with medication” and “therapy notes

indicating that the claimant is able to create art and to sell his art work on

commission”). The same is true of Counselor Perretz-Rosales’s evaluations: The

ALJ deemed them unpersuasive after the end of the closed period, because the

assessed limitations were unsupported by “treatment records that do not indicate

marked or extreme findings” and inconsistent with “the treatment of record” and

Reimer’s “activities of daily living.”

Finally, Reimer asserts that the additional evidence submitted to the Appeals

Council does not support the ALJ’s finding of medical improvement. The Appeals

Council’s denial of Reimer’s request for review is not a final agency action, so we

do not have jurisdiction to review it. However, the newly submitted materials

become part of the administrative record that we review for substantial evidence.

Burrell v. Colvin, 775 F.3d 1133, 1136 (9th Cir. 2014). Here, Reimer contributed

additional medical records from Counselor Perretz-Rosales and other sources that

4 23-2620 either do not pertain to the period in question or do not undermine the ALJ’s denial

of benefits. Reimer argues that these documents showed “continued ups and downs

before and after the medical improvement date.” The question is not whether

Reimer experienced setbacks after the closed period, but whether substantial

evidence supports the ALJ’s decision, which it does.

AFFIRMED.

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