Melendez Salgado v. SHHS
U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit
Melendez Salgado v. SHHS
Opinion
USCA1 Opinion
April 1, 1992 [NOT FOR PUBLICATION]
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No. 91-2230
CARMEN M. MELENDEZ SALGADO,
Plaintiff, Appellant,
v.
SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES,
Defendant, Appellee.
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APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO
[Hon. Juan M. Perez-Gimenez, U.S. District Judge]
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Before
Torruella, Circuit Judge,
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Campbell, Senior Circuit Judge,
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and Selya, Circuit Judge.
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Raymond Rivera Esteves and Juan A. Hernandez Rivera on brief for
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appellant.
Daniel F. Lopez Romo, United States Attorney, Jose Vazquez
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Garcia, Assistant United States Attorney, and Nancy B. Salafia,
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Assistant Regional Counsel, Department of Health and Human Services,
on brief for appellee.
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Per Curiam. The appellant, Carmen Melendez Salgado,
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appeals from a decision of the Secretary of Health and Human
Services denying her application for federal disability
benefits. The Secretary's decision was based on a ruling by
an administrative law judge (ALJ) that Mrs. Melendez had the
residual functional capacity to return to her past work as a
legal secretary. The district court affirmed the Secretary's
decision, and this appeal followed. For the reasons stated
in this opinion, we affirm the district court judgment.
The Medical Evidence
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Mrs. Melendez claims that she has been disabled since
late 1982 by upper back pain that radiates to and affects her
neck and left shoulder, and by diabetes.1 The medical
evidence of record shows that Mrs. Melendez has been treated
for diabetes by drug therapy and diet modification for some
twenty years, and that, although at least one doctor has
described the condition as "uncontrollable," she did not
suffer during the period of her insured status from a
significant impairment of vision or from any of the
impairments of the nervous or vascular systems that are
sometimes associated with diabetes.
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1. The record also shows that Mrs. Melendez has complained
of or been diagnosed as suffering from menstrual problems,
chest pains, hypertension, headaches and dizzy spells,
insomnia and an anxiety disorder judged not to be "severe" by
the Secretary's medical consultants. Mrs. Melendez has not
attempted to link any of these ailments or their symptoms to
her alleged inability to perform her past work.
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Mrs. Melendez has complained of back and neck pain since
at least 1982. X-rays, however, have never revealed a spinal
defect except for "minimal levoscoliosis," and the condition
has been diagnosed as myositis (muscle inflammation) and
muscle spasm, but never as one involving nerve damage. Range
of motion tests have consistently showed no limitation of
movement in her neck and shoulder, but have on occasion
detected some limitations of movement in the trunk.
At the hearing before the ALJ, Mrs. Melendez also
complained of pain and numbness in her hands, and asserted
that she had received "injections" for the problem. The
medical records do not report this treatment, and though the
evidence does reflect her complaints of numbness, it does not
suggest whether the discomfort in Mrs. Melendez' hands is
related to either her back and neck problems or her diabetes.
The ALJ's Decision
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The ALJ denied Mrs. Melendez benefits at the fourth step
of the "sequential analysis" created by the Secretary's
regulations. 20 C.F.R. 404.1520. That is, the ALJ decided
(1) that Mrs. Melendez was not working, (2) that she suffered
from a "severe" impairment, (3) that the impairment did not,
however, "meet or equal" in its severity one of the
impairments listed in Appendix 1 of Part 404 of the
regulations, and (4) that, notwithstanding her impairment,
she had the residual functional capacity to perform her "past
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relevant work" as a legal secretary. 20 C.F.R.
404.1520(e).
The ALJ made three findings concerning his decision at
step four, as he was required to do by Social Security Ruling
(SSR) 82-62. First, he concluded that "there are no
objective findings in file to establish that [Mrs. Melendez]
is not able to function in sedentary and light activities."
Second, he found that Mrs. Melendez' past relevant work as a
legal secretary involved mostly sedentary, but occasionally
light, work activities. See 20 C.F.R. 404.1545(a) and (b)
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(defining sedentary and light work, respectively). These
activities included typing and taking dictation, running
errands, answering the telephone, "and so forth." Finally,
the ALJ found that Mrs. Melendez' residual functional
capacity was sufficient to allow her to return to such work.
The Issue on Appeal
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Mrs. Melendez contends on appeal that the ALJ
incorrectly decided that she had the residual functional
capacity to meet the demands of her former job. We review
such a challenge in light of (1) the disability claimant's
burden of proof at step four, Goodermote v. Secretary of
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Health and Human Services, 690 F.2d 5, 7 (1st Cir. 1982), and
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(2) the standard of "substantial evidence" that governs the
Secretary's disability determinations. Richardson v.
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Perales, 402, U.S. 389, 410 (1971). This means that we will
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review here only to determine whether a "reasonable mind"
could have concluded on the evidence before the ALJ that Mrs.
Melendez had failed to prove an inability to return to her
past relevant work.
Our application of this standard compels us to affirm.
First, the ALJ's characterization of Mrs. Melendez' past work
as being mostly sedentary, and requiring no more than
transient interludes of "light" activity, accords with Mrs.
Melendez' own description of her job requirements. Although
Mrs. Melendez described her job as a legal secretary in only
general (and occasionally inconsistent)2 terms, we glean
from her testimony and the evidence she submitted that the
job required her to sit most of the time and to stand or walk
only occasionally, and that it involved "a lot" of writing
and some typing, but little bending and no more than
occasional lifting and carrying of relatively light objects.
The ALJ's finding that Mrs. Melendez had the residual
functional capacity to do sedentary and some light work is
slightly more problematic, though we ultimately conclude that
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2. For example, in the first Disability Report Mrs. Melendez
submitted to the Secretary, she alleged that her former job
required "constant" bending and "frequent" reaching. In the
second Disability Report she submitted, she claimed that the
job required only "occasional" bending and reaching. The
third Disability Report said that the need for bending
"depend[ed] on the work duty," and left unanswered a question
about reaching. There were similar inconsistencies among the
three Disability Reports with respect to the amount of
walking, standing, lifting and carrying required by the job.
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it was supported by substantial evidence. It is true that we
usually disqualify the ALJ, as a lay factfinder without
medical expertise, from translating "raw medical data" into
an assessment of a claimant's residual functional capacity.
Rather, we usually require the ALJ to enlist the services of
a doctor to make the translation in the form of an "RFC
questionnaire." See, e.g., Rivera-Torres v. Secretary of
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Health and Human Services, 837 F.2d 4, 7 (1st Cir. 1988) (per
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curiam).
The ALJ here did not take that step. However, we can
excuse his failure to do so for two reasons. First, the
impairments reflected in the record, though numerous, appear
to have been "relatively mild" in the sense that the reports
show few symptoms that would affect ability to do work. See
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Santiago v. Secretary of Health and Human Services, 944 F.2d
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1, 4-5 (1st Cir. 1991) (per curiam). Second, and more
important, we do not read Mrs. Melendez' appellate brief to
challenge the ALJ's categorization of her residual functional
capacity. Rather, we understand Mrs. Melendez to complain
that the ALJ, though perhaps correct about her ability to do
sedentary and some light work as a general proposition,
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nevertheless failed to take into account specific physical
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limitations that rendered her unable to meet the demands of
her past work.
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Mrs. Melendez' argument in this regard focuses on (1)
her description of her past secretarial job as requiring her
to do some typing and "a lot" of handwriting, and (2) her
allegations of "severe problems" with her "upper
extremities," and pain and numbness in her hands. The ALJ,
she argues, should not have "summarily dismissed" such
evidence.
We see Mrs. Melendez' point, and think that the better
practice for the ALJ might have been to enlist expert
assistance to resolve the issue. But the record does not
permit us to conclude that the ALJ lacked substantial
evidence for the finding, implicit in his ultimate
determination of no disability, that Mrs. Melendez had failed
to prove that her problems with her arms and hands prevented
her from meeting the typing and writing requirements of her
past work. The medical evidence contained only sporadic
reports that Mrs. Melendez complained of numbness in her
hands. As to the allegations of "severe" problems with her
upper extremities, the record shows that numerous tests
failed to detect any significant restriction in range of
motion or arm strength. The record also contains a three-
page, single-spaced holographic letter written by Mrs.
Melendez in November 1986. The handwriting in the letter is
clear and legible, and is evidence that Mrs. Melendez could
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do at least some handwriting during the period of her alleged
disability.
Thus, although the record might not have led us to the
same conclusion as it did the ALJ, the evidence was
sufficient to allow a "reasonable mind" to accept the ALJ's
conclusion, and we therefore have no reason to disturb the
Secretary's decision.
The judgment is affirmed.
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Reference
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