Sharpe v. Comm’r, Soc. Sec. Admin., No. 20-14350, 2022 WL 152229 (11th Cir. 2022)

Sharpe v. Comm’r, Soc. Sec. Admin., No. 20-14350, 2022 WL 152229 (11th Cir. 2022) (Decision by Circuit Judges Wilson, Rosenbaum, and Jill Pryor) (per curiam)

Briefs Included:

• Appellant’s Initial Brief 

• Appellant’s Reply Brief 

Topics addressed:

• Specific impairments - anxiety

• Mental domains - interacting with others

• RFC - relationship with PRTF findings

• RFC - interacting with co-workers, supervisors and the public

• RFC - post DLI evidence

• Treating physician’s opinion (old law) - good cause

• Retrospective medical opinions (old law)
  

Rulings addressed:

• Social Security Ruling 96-8p

• Social Security Ruling 96-9p

• Social Security Ruling 16-3p 
  

Issues briefed:

1) Whether the mental residual functional capacity finding does not properly account for the credited marked limitations in interacting with others.

2) Whether the Commissioner’s rejection of treating psychiatrist Dr. Co’s opinion was not supported by substantial evidence.

Court decision:
Appellant, a Navy veteran, argued that the ALJ erred in assessing his RFC in finding that he could occasionally interact with supervisors and coworkers. 2022 WL 152229, at *1. The Eleventh Circuit agreed that substantial evidence did not support this finding as:

[t]he record reflects that due to his anxiety and other psychological impairments, Sharpe was unable to interact with anyone outside of his immediate family. Over a six-year period, he left his home no more than a dozen times. To avoid interacting with others, he would refuse to answer the door to his home, pick up the phone if it was ringing, or allow his children to have friends over. His anxiety was so severe that he was unable to leave his home to attend his daughter’s high school graduation or his father’s funeral. When faced with having to interact with someone outside his family, Sharpe would become agitated and angry and end up sick in bed for days. Given that Sharpe’s social network did not extend beyond his immediate family, we cannot say that the record before us contains evidence that a reasonable person would accept as adequate to support the conclusion that Sharpe was able to have occasional interaction with supervisors and coworkers in a working environment.

Id. at *6.

The court reached this conclusion despite the absence of medical records from the date of the claimant’s discharge from the Navy until his date last insured, noting that due to the claimant’s inability to leave his home, he rarely received medical care. Id. at *2. Thus, all records came from the period after the date last insured, and included a psychological examination three months after his DLI, which confirmed that the claimant had not received medical treatment as he was unwilling to leave his house to visit a doctor’s office. The psychologist observed that the claimant “did not make eye contact during the examination, displayed little spontaneous speech, and had a distant and guarded attitude” and diagnosed the claimant with panic disorder, agoraphobia, and avoidant personality disorder. Id. He observed that the claimant was:

“quite limited” in his ability to handle abstraction and had impaired recent and remote memory. [He] opined that Sharpe was “severely impaired” in his capability to interact appropriately with others, “moderately impaired” in his ability to adapt to workplace stressors, and “mildly impaired” in his ability to understand and remember detailed instructions and to sustain attention for extended periods of time. [The psychologist] concluded that Sharpe’s anxiety disorder was “treatable” but noted that his reluctance to interact with others was “more chronic.”

Id. at *3 (record citations omitted).

The claimant also saw a VA psychiatrist on five occasions over a 9-month period who diagnosed generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder with agoraphobia, insomnia, REM sleep disorder, mood disorder, and somatoform disorder, and treated the claimant with medications, which were changed many times. Id. However, even with medication, the claimant reported no improvement, remaining unable to leave his house and after approximately nine months of treatment, the psychiatrist concluded that “medication trials have been unsuccessful to address all of [Sharpe’s] symptoms, including his difficulty in leaving . . . home for ordinary activities.” Id. The psychiatrist opined that the claimant had “no useful ability” to accept instructions and respond appropriately to criticism from supervisors, get along with co-workers or peers without unduly distracting them or exhibiting behavioral extremes, and deal with normal work stress. Id. at *4. He further opined that the claimant “had extreme limitations” in maintaining social functioning and was precluded from working with others and ultimately opined that the claimant’s anxiety-related disorder left him with a “complete inability to function independently outside” of his home. Id.

In the decision under review, the ALJ had found that the claimant had a marked limitation in “only one area: interacting with others.” Id. In support, the ALJ stated that the claimant’s primary problem appeared to be “severe social anxiety that exacerbated after his retirement from the military to the point that he has very little interaction with others, but it appears to mostly occur in large crowds of people.” Id. In assessing the claimant’s RFC, the ALJ found that he could “have no more than occasional interaction with supervisors and coworkers; and have no interaction with the general public.” Id. at *5. While the ALJ claimed that he relied on the psychologist’s report for this finding, the court found nothing in the report supported the ALJ’s conclusion that “during the relevant time period,. . . he experienced anxiety only when he was in large groups and would be able to interact occasionally with supervisors or coworkers.” Id. at *6 (emphasis in original). Rather, the court noted, the psychologist’s report reflected that the claimant was “generally unable to leave his home or interact with anyone outside his immediate family.” Id.

The court rejected the Commissioner’s argument that other medical evidence supported the ALJ’s assessment because the ALJ did not rely on that evidence “so we may not affirm on this basis.” Id. at *7 (citing Owens v. Heckler, 748 F.2d 1511, 1516 (11th Cir. 1984); Newton v. Apfel, 209 F.3d 448, 455 (5th Cir. 2000)). In any event, the court was not persuaded that the evidence cited supported the Commissioner’s position. Id. The Eleventh Circuit concluded that “[a]lthough our standard of review is deferential, it does not mean that we ‘merely rubber[ ]stamp’ an ALJ’s decision” and the court “‘must scrutinize the record as a whole to determine if the decision reached is reasonable and supported by substantial evidence.’” Id. (quoting Schink v. Comm’r of Soc. Sec., 935 F.3d 1245, 1257 (11th Cir. 2019) (internal quotation marks omitted). As the record failed to support the ALJ’s findings that the claimant “remained able to interact occasionally with co-workers or supervisors,” the court concluded that the ALJ erred in assessing the claimant’s RFC and “the case must be remanded.” Id.