Julie Trnavsky v. Carolyn Colvin , 636 F. App'x 390 ( 2016 )

FILED
NOT FOR PUBLICATION JAN 06 2016
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
JULIE TRNAVSKY, No. 13-35755
Plaintiff - Appellee, D.C. No. 6:12-cv-00382-RE
v.
MEMORANDUM*
CAROLYN W. COLVIN, Commissioner
of Social Security,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the District of Oregon
James A. Redden, Senior District Judge, Presiding
Argued and Submitted October 13, 2015
Portland, Oregon
Before: TASHIMA, GILMAN**, and BEA, Circuit Judges.
The Commissioner of Social Security (the “Commissioner”) appeals the
district court’s application of the credit-as-true rule to reverse an administrative
law judge’s (“ALJ’s”) order denying Disability Insurance Benefits and
*
This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by 9th Cir. R. 36-3.
**
The Honorable Ronald Lee Gilman, Senior Circuit Judge for the U.S.
Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, sitting by designation.
Supplemental Security Income to Plaintiff-Appellee Julie Trnavsky (“Trnavsky”)
and to remand for the immediate payment of benefits. We affirm.
We review de novo the district court’s decision to reverse the ALJ’s
disability determination, see Garrison v. Colvin, 759 F.3d 995, 1010 (9th Cir.
2014), but we review the corollary decision to remand for immediate payment of
benefits only for abuse of discretion, see Harman v. Apfel, 211 F.3d 1172, 1174
(9th Cir. 2000). Under the “Harman test,” a district court may remand for
immediate award of benefits only “if (1) the ALJ has failed to provide legally
sufficient reasons for rejecting [a treating physician’s opinion], (2) there are no
outstanding issues that must be resolved before a determination of disability can be
made, and (3) it is clear from the record that the ALJ would be required to find the
claimant disabled were [the treating physician’s opinion] credited.” Benecke v.
Barnhart, 379 F.3d 587, 593 (9th Cir. 2004) (citing Harman, 211 F.3d at 1178). If
the first element is met, the district court may credit the rejected evidence as true as
a matter of law (the “credit-as-true” doctrine) and analyze the next two elements of
the Harman test under that assumption. Benecke, 379 F.3d at 594.
1. Harman Step One. The Commissioner expressly waived any challenge
to the district court’s determination (on Harman Step One) that the ALJ failed to
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provide adequate reasons for rejecting Dr. Holland’s opinion.1 We therefore find
that issue waived. See Burrell v. Colvin, 775 F.3d 1133, 1141–42 (9th Cir. 2014).
The Commissioner’s argument that the district court abused its discretion in
crediting Dr. Holland’s opinion as true therefore lacks merit: Because Harman’s
first element was met, the district court acted within its discretion in crediting Dr.
Holland’s opinion as true. See Benecke, 379 F.3d at 593. Moreover, an adverse
credibility finding as to the claimant does not justify rejecting a treating
physician’s opinion unless (a) that opinion was based “to a large extent” on the
claimant’s unreliable self-reports, and (b) the physician did not independently
evaluate the claimant’s symptoms and make medical findings. Compare
Tommasetti v. Astrue, 533 F.3d 1035, 1037, 1040–41 (9th Cir. 2008), with
Benecke, 379 F.3d at 594–96. Here, Dr. Holland’s medical opinion was expressly
based on her independent medical assessment, on the corroborating diagnoses of
other specialists, and on Trnavsky’s well-documented mental health history.2
1
This is an issue that we would generally review de novo because it goes to
the question whether the remand was proper in the first instance. See Harman, 211
F.3d at 1174 (decisions to affirm or reverse the ALJ’s determinations are
reviewed de novo, as is the district court’s determination to remand the case).
2
Nor was Dr. Holland’s three-page medical opinion overly brief and
insufficiently supported by clinical findings; thus, Bayliss v. Barnhart, 427 F.3d
1211 (9th Cir. 2005), does not help the Commissioner.
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Nor does the fact that Dr. Holland provided primarily physical treatment
provide a legally cognizable basis for rejecting Dr. Holland’s opinion—much less
for finding that the district court abused its discretion in crediting Dr. Holland’s
opinion as true. Specialization is but one of six factors to be considered in
weighing competing medical opinions, and Dr. Holland, as an M.D., was qualified
to opine on Trnavsky’s mental health. See Sprague v. Bowen, 812 F.2d 1226, 1232
(9th Cir. 1987). Indeed, we have recognized that a primary care physician’s
opinion is entitled to “special” weight. See, e.g., Lester v. Chater, 81 F.3d 821,
832–35 (9th Cir. 1995).3
2. Harman Step 2. The district court likewise did not abuse its discretion in
finding, at Harman Step 2, that no outstanding issues remained after crediting Dr.
Holland’s opinion as true, even though Dr. Gordy (a non-examining physician)
disagreed with Dr. Holland’s assessment. On closer examination, Dr. Gordy’s
opinion does not materially conflict with that of Dr. Holland, Trnavsky’s treating
3
And contrary to the Commissioner’s assertion, the district court did not
affirm the ALJ’s decision to afford great weight to Dr. Gordy’s opinion. Rather,
the district court held that, because Dr. Gordy’s testimony that Trnavsky would not
get along with a “hard-nosed, non-compassionate supervisor” was purely
speculative, the ALJ did not err by failing to include limitations relating to a
supervisor’s personality in Trnavsky’s Residual Functional Capacity (“RFC”).
Thus, there is no internal inconsistency that would require reversal of the district
court’s opinion.
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physician. While Dr. Holland definitively opines that Trnavsky is unable to
maintain employment, Dr. Gordy merely offers her “conjecture” that Trnavsky
could respond appropriately to work-related people and pressures. The credit-as-
true rule permits a reviewing court to “credit as true” an improperly rejected
treating physician’s assessment over a non-examining, non-treating physician’s
contrary opinion on the same question. See, e.g., Widmark v. Barnhart, 454 F.3d
1063, 1069 (9th Cir. 2006). Particularly in light of the “special weight” afforded to
a primary care physician’s opinion, see, e.g., Lester, 81 F.3d at 832–35, it was not
an abuse of discretion for the district court to conclude that Dr. Gordy’s
speculative statement did not raise an outstanding issue.
Nor does our recent decision in Dominguez v. Colvin, No. 13-17380, 2015
WL 8600040 (9th Cir. Dec. 14, 2015) compel a finding that the district court
abused its discretion in remanding Trnavsky’s case for immediate award of
benefits. The record in Dominguez contained significantly more factual ambiguity
than does the record here. Not only was the treating physician’s opinion
contradicted by three other physicians, it was contradicted by the treating
physician’s own notes. Id. at *4. Moreover, Dominguez had stated a different
disability onset date in her second application for disability than she had stated in
her first application, and had offered no evidence to explain the discrepancy. Id. at
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*5. Given that the determination as to whether “further administrative proceedings
would serve no useful purpose” is highly fact-specific, id. at *4, it does not follow
from Dominguez that the district court’s contrary determination in Trnavsky’s case
(on a different set of facts) was an abuse of discretion. Indeed, the
Commissioner’s argument ignores a key distinction between the posture of
Dominguez and the present case, which, given the highly deferential standard of
review on appeal, supports a different outcome here. In Dominguez, the district
court had remanded the claimant’s case for further fact-finding; thus, we simply
held that this was not an abuse of discretion. Id. at *1, 5. Conversely here, the
district court remanded Trnavsky’s case for immediate payment of benefits, and the
Commissioner asks us to find an abuse of discretion. This is a much higher bar,
and, for all the reasons set forth herein, we do not find it met here.
3. Harman Step 3. Finally, the district court did not abuse its discretion in
holding that if the improperly discredited evidence were credited as true, the ALJ
would be required to find Trnavsky disabled on remand. Garrison, 259 F.3d at
1021. Dr. Holland’s diagnoses of PTSD and depression, combined with Dr.
Aviotti’s assessment and the uncontroverted evidence of Trnavsky’s job history,
demonstrated that Trnavsky’s PTSD and other health issues caused emotional
outbursts in the workplace and excessive absenteeism. In turn, a vocational expert
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called by the government testified that an individual who “decompensates” in the
workplace because of PTSD (i.e., the individual’s mental illness manifests because
of triggers in the workplace), or who routinely requires more than two days off
from work in a month, would be unable to maintain competitive employment.
Because this evidence established that Trnavsky’s impairments would rule out
competitive employment, the district court did not abuse its discretion in finding
that the evidence compelled a finding of disability. See, e.g., Lester, 81 F.3d at
834–35.
For all of these reasons, we AFFIRM the district court’s reversal and remand
for immediate payment of benefits.
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