Lianne R. SUMMERS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Carolyn W. COLVIN, Acting Commissioner of Social Security, Defendant-Appellee.
No. 15-1819.
United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.
Submitted Dec. 22, 2015. Decided Feb. 4, 2016.
639 Fed. Appx. 366
James Desir, Attorney, Social Security Administration Office of the General Counsel, Chicago, IL, Richard D. Humphrey, Attorney, Office of the United States Attorney, Madison, WI, for Defendant-Appellee.
Before DIANE P. WOOD, Chief Judge, JOEL M. FLAUM, Circuit Judge, DANIEL A. MANION, Circuit Judge.
ORDER
Lianne Summers appeals from a judgment upholding the Social Security Administration‘s denial of her applications for Disability Insurance Benefits and Supplemental Security Income. See
While she was living in Las Vegas, Nevada, Summers developed severe back pain following a car accident in June 2004. As detailed in the written decisions of the ALJ and the district court, see Summers v. Colvin, No. 12-cv-22-wmc, 2013 WL 6564451 (W.D.Wis. Dec. 13, 2013), Summers sought treatment from several doctors during the months following the accident but stopped when she moved out-of-state in March 2005. In 2006 she returned to her home state of Wisconsin; she applied for benefits in September 2009.
In her applications Summers alleged that she suffers from back pain and Crohn‘s disease, though she has never been diagnosed or treated for the latter condition. Her applications initially were denied in December 2009, but afterward she sought further medical treatment through August 2010. In addition to complaining about lower-back pain, she told health-care providers (and later the ALJ) that she experiences numbness, tingling, and pain in her extremities, hips, upper back, and shoulders. Her physicians attributed these symptoms to fibromyalgia and chronic pain syndrome, but Summers insisted that they result from Lyme disease, despite the fact that she had tested negative for that disorder. Summers also
After conducting a hearing in March 2011, the ALJ applied the required five-step analysis, see
In this court Summers first challenges the ALJ‘s credibility finding, which we must accept unless it is “patently wrong.” See, e.g., Pepper v. Colvin, 712 F.3d 351, 367 (7th Cir.2013). She critiques the ALJ‘s use of the circular boilerplate we have criticized frequently, see, e.g., Goins v. Colvin, 764 F.3d 677, 681 (7th Cir.2014);
Summers accuses the ALJ of making a different mistake, however: she asserts that he found her not credible solely because the objective medical evidence does not explain her pain. See Hall v. Colvin, 778 F.3d 688, 691 (7th Cir.2015). If that were true, it would be a problem, but a careful look at the record shows that it is not. The ALJ relied on more than a lack of substantiation in the medical evidence. He addressed Summers‘s history of conservative treatment, the assessments of the consulting physicians, the lack of objective verification of her difficulties performing daily activities, and inconsistencies between her reported limitations and doctors’ findings on examination. The ALJ also noted one doctor‘s report of Summers‘s apparent eagerness to receive benefits.
Summers responds that the ALJ should not have focused on the several-year hiatus in treatment after she left Las Vegas or her decision to stop treatment in 2010, since the ALJ did not first explore her reasons for suspending treatment. An ALJ must inquire into the claimant‘s reasons before relying on the absence of medical treatment to support an adverse credibility finding. See Craft v. Astrue, 539 F.3d 668, 679 (7th Cir.2008). But the ALJ did not draw an adverse inference about Summers‘s credibility from any lack of treatment. Rather, the ALJ‘s mention of the gaps in treatment was related to his point that the treatment Summers did receive was conservative. And even if the ALJ had concluded that the gaps undermined Summers‘s credibility, she has not explained how she was harmed by the ALJ‘s failure to explore her reasons. See Spiva v. Astrue, 628 F.3d 346, 353 (7th Cir.2010) (noting that doctrine of harmless error applies to Social Security cases). Summers‘s explanation that she did not have insurance or reliable transportation at the time of her hearing in 2011 does not address her circumstances during the period from 2005 to 2010 or why she was unable to seek care at the free clinic near her in Marshfield, where she resumed treatment in 2010.
Summers also argues that the ALJ erred in concluding that she had exaggerated her limitations and impairments, but there was evidence to support this assessment. As the ALJ pointed out, Summers consistently described herself as having impairments that doctors had not diagnosed. Summers testified at her hearing that she had been diagnosed with Lyme disease despite the fact that she had tested negative for that condition and an infectious-disease doctor had ruled it out as the cause of her pain. She also testified that she had been diagnosed with carpal tunnel despite normal EMG results. And she told doctors that she had a history of rheumatoid arthritis dating to 2005, but that claim is yet another that testing debunked. Moreover, as the ALJ noted, the doctors’ physical examinations, which consistently revealed normal muscle strength and a lack of neurological problems, contradicted Summers‘s stated limitations.
Summers further maintains that it was error for the ALJ to note her apparent “eagerness” to receive benefits, a point mentioned by Dr. Daniel Sa. But this argument, too, is unconvincing. Given the lack of findings after Dr. Sa‘s examination, and the timing of the statement—after Sum
Summers next argues that the ALJ‘s determination at Step 3 that her conditions did not meet or equal a listed impairment under
Had this been all the ALJ said, it would be problematic for its brevity. See Minnick v. Colvin, 775 F.3d 929, 935-36 (7th Cir.2015). But we read the ALJ‘s decision as a whole, see Rice v. Barnhart, 384 F.3d 363, 370 n. 5 (7th Cir.2004), and later the ALJ addressed Summers‘s evidence more thoroughly and explained why the record did not establish the criteria required to satisfy Listing 1.04.
Finally, Summers challenges the ALJ‘s conclusion that she had the residual functional capacity to perform sedentary work. She contends that it was improper for the ALJ to place great weight on Dr. Philip Cohen‘s assessment because he did not treat her and he was consulted before much of the treatment she received in 2010. But no treating source gave an opinion about Summers‘s functional limitations. The only other medical opinion on point came from Dr. Patricia Bush, the other state-agency consultant, who concluded that Summers had even fewer limitations. None of her treating physicians ever opined that Summers was unable to work. It was not error for the ALJ to rely on the uncontradicted expert opinion of Dr. Cohen, despite the fact that he never treated Summers himself. See Filus, 694 F.3d at 867; Cass v. Shalala, 8 F.3d 552, 555 (7th Cir.1993).
AFFIRMED.