[NOT FOR PUBLICATION–NOT TO BE CITED AS PRECEDENT]
United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 00-1924
LUIS A. LOPEZ,
Plaintiff, Appellant,
v.
COMMISSIONER OF SOCIAL SECURITY,
Defendant, Appellee.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO
[Hon. Carmen Consuelo Cerezo, U.S. District Judge]
[Hon. Aida M. Delgado-Colón, U.S. Magistrate Judge]
Before
Selya, Boudin and Lynch,
Circuit Judges.
Fabio A. Roman Garcia on brief for appellant.
Guillermo Gil, United States Attorney, Lilliam Mendoza Toro,
Assistant United States Attorney, and Joseph Dunn, Assistant
Regional Counsel, Social Security Administration, on brief for
appellee.
April 19, 2001
Per Curiam. Claimant Luis A. Lopez appeals from the
judgment of the district court which upheld the decision of
the Commissioner of Social Security that claimant was not
entitled to disability benefits. After carefully reviewing
the record and the briefs, we affirm the district court's
judgment for essentially the reasons stated in the Opinion
and Order of the magistrate judge. We add only the
following comments.
First, the administrative law judge (ALJ) was not
required to have consulted the Dictionary of Occupational
Titles (D.O.T.) to ascertain the demands of claimant's past
work as a programmer-analyst at the Puerto Rico Electric
Power Authority. As we have stated, an ALJ usually "is
entitled to rely upon claimant's own description of the
duties involved in [his] former job." Santiago v. Secretary
of Health and Human Services, 944 F.2d 1, 5 (1st Cir. 1991)
(per curiam). Only when the ALJ is "alerted by the record
to the presence of an issue" must the ALJ further develop
the record. Id. (emphasis omitted). However, claimant
points to nothing here which should have alerted the ALJ to
the need to consult outside sources such as the D.O.T.
In this regard, we note that the portions of the
record to which claimant refers in support of the assertion
that he supervised others at the Power Authority do not show
that such a duty, in fact, was a part of his prior job.
Further, and assuming that some contact with others was
required, claimant completely fails to identify anything in
the record which even remotely suggests that such contact
occurred frequently. In this context, it is significant
that claimant nowhere stated that frequent contact with
others was a reason he could not perform his prior job as a
programmer-analyst. We think it fair to assume that if
frequent contact was, in fact, required and if claimant
could not tolerate such contact, claimant would have
mentioned it somewhere. The ALJ's conclusion that claimant
could perform his past work therefore is supported by
substantial evidence.
The judgment of the district court is affirmed.
-3-