Jenkins-Hamby v. Commissioner of Social Security

HONORABLE RICHARD A. JONES

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 7 WESTERN DISTRICT OF WASHINGTON AT SEATTLE LUCINDA JENKINS-HAMBY, Plaintiff, 10 Case No. 3:18-cv-05783-RAJ v. 11 ORDER ADOPTING REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION COMMISSIONER OF SOCIAL SECURITY, Defendant.

15 I. INTRODUCTION 16 This matter is before the Court on Plaintiff’s objections to the Report and Recommendation of Magistrate Judge Mary Alice Theiler. Dkt. # 11. Having considered Plaintiff’s objections, the Court ADOPTS the Report and Recommendation.

19 II. DISCUSSION The background of this matter is detailed in Magistrate Judge Mary Alice Theiler’s Report and Recommendation and will not be repeated here. See Dkt. # 11. Plaintiff objects to the Report and Recommendation and contends that the credit-as-true rule compels this Court to remand the case for an immediate award of benefits instead of further proceedings.

Dkt. # 8.

Before a Court may remand a case to the ALJ with instructions to award benefits, three requirements must be met: (1) the record has been fully developed and further administrative proceedings would serve no useful purpose; (2) the ALJ has failed to provide legally sufficient reasons for rejecting evidence, whether claimant testimony or medical opinion; and (3) if the improperly discredited evidence were credited as true, the ALJ would be required to find the claimant disabled on remand. Burrell v. Colvin, 775 4 F.3d 1133, 1141 (9th Cir. 2014); Garrison v. Colvin, 759 F.3d 995 (9th Cir. 2014).

5 Magistrate Judge Theiler found that it was not clear that the record had been fully developed, noting such outstanding issues such as the effect of plaintiff’s failure to comply with her medication regimen and other treatment recommendations on her functioning and the extent to which her symptoms were unusually exacerbated during in-patient hospitalizations versus her day-to-day functioning. Dkt. # 11. This Court, taking Plaintiff’s objections into consideration, agrees that is not clear that the record has been fully developed and that further proceedings would serve no useful purpose. Accordingly, the Court ADOPTS Magistrate Judge Theiler’s Report and Recommendation.

13 III. . CONCLUSION 14 For the reasons stated above, and having considered Plaintiff’s objections, the Court ADOPTS the Report and Recommendation.

DATED this 31st day of October, 2019.

A The Honorable Richard A. Jones United States District Judge