Rebecca Littlefield v. Andrew Saul ( 2021 )

FILED
NOT FOR PUBLICATION
MAR 19 2021
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
REBECCA LITTLEFIELD, No. 19-35304
Plaintiff-Appellant, D.C. No. 6:18-cv-00500-MK
v.
MEMORANDUM*
ANDREW M. SAUL, Commissioner of
Social Security,
Defendant-Appellee.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the District of Oregon
Mustafa T. Kasubhai, Magistrate Judge, Presiding
Submitted March 11, 2021**
San Francisco, California
Before: McKEOWN, IKUTA, and BRESS, Circuit Judges.
Rebecca Littlefield appeals a magistrate judge’s order affirming the final
decision of the Commissioner of Social Security denying her application for
*
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).
disability benefits and supplemental-security income. We have jurisdiction under
28 U.S.C. § 1291, and we affirm.
The Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) did not err at step two by concluding
that Littlefield did not have a medically determinable mental impairment, because
the record contains no “medically acceptable clinical and laboratory diagnostic
techniques” or “objective medical evidence from an acceptable medical source”
indicating that Littlefield had a mental impairment. 20 C.F.R. § 404.1521. In
reaching this conclusion, the ALJ did not fail to discharge her duty to develop the
record, because the record was adequate to allow for proper evaluation of the
evidence. See Mayes v. Massanari, 276 F.3d 453, 459–60 (9th Cir. 2001).
The ALJ offered germane reasons for rejecting the opinion of Nurse Hayes,
who is an “other” medical sources. Popa v. Berryhill, 872 F.3d 901, 906 (9th Cir.
2017). The ALJ noted that Hayes’s opinion was “not fully consistent” with other
contemporaneous evidence. The ALJ also offered germane reasons for rejecting
the opinions of Trish Shannon and Nicole Desiderati, both of whom are also
“other” medical sources. See id. The ALJ noted that Shannon’s opinion was
inconsistent with the contemporaneous observations of Dr. Cheung, Littlefield’s
treating physician, and that Desiderati’s limited observations conflicted with other
objective medical evidence in the record.
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The ALJ did not need to mention the opinions of non-examining state-
agency doctors Boyd and Kessler regarding Littlefield’s workplace limitations due
to mental impairments, because portions of the opinions were incorporated into the
residual functional capacity finding. See Stubbs-Danielson v. Astrue, 539 F.3d
1169, 1173–75 (9th Cir. 2008) (explaining that an ALJ’s assessment “adequately
captures” medical opinions when the assessment is consistent with parts of those
opinions, even if the assessment does not specifically mention them). To the
extent the ALJ erred by not including or explaining her disagreement with these
doctors’ opinions that Littlefield could complete only 1–2 step tasks, any error is
harmless. See Garcia v. Comm’r., 768 F.3d 925, 932 (9th Cir. 2014). The only
medically acceptable evidence in the record was provided by Dr. Cheung, who
opined that Littlefield did not have any mental impairment. Neither Boyd nor
Kessler relied on any objective medical evidence in reaching their conclusion
regarding the 1–2 step tasks limitation, and therefore the ALJ was not required to
rely on it. See Bayliss v. Barnhart, 427 F.3d 1211, 1216 (9th Cir. 2005) (“An ALJ
need not accept the opinion of a doctor if that opinion is brief, conclusory, and
inadequately supported by clinical findings.” (cleaned up)).
Likewise, the ALJ did not err by failing to mention the 1–2 step tasks
limitation when questioning the vocational expert, because “in hypotheticals posed
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to a vocational expert, the ALJ must only include those limitations supported by
substantial evidence.” Robbins v. Comm’r., 466 F.3d 880, 886 (9th Cir. 2006).
Littlefield’s reliance on Rounds v. Commissioner, 807 F.3d 996, 1003 (9th Cir.
2015) is therefore misplaced.
Finally, the ALJ did not err in its determination that Littlefield’s testimony
regarding her physical pain was not entirely consistent with the record. The ALJ
properly rejected Littlefield’s testimony based on evidence of drug-seeking
behavior, see Edlund v. Massanari, 253 F.3d 1152, 1157 (9th Cir. 2001), as well as
inconsistencies between Littlefield’s testimony and other objective medical
evidence.
AFFIRMED.
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