NOT FOR PUBLICATION
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FILED
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT APR 21 2014
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
ALLEN GENE SEATON, No. 12-16216
Plaintiff - Appellant, D.C. No. 2:11-cv-01143-FJM
v.
MEMORANDUM*
CAROLYN W. COLVIN, Acting
Commissioner of Social Security
Administration,
Defendant - Appellee.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the District of Arizona
Frederick J. Martone, Senior District Judge, Presiding
Argued and Submitted April 11, 2014
San Francisco, California
Before: TALLMAN and CLIFTON, Circuit Judges, and DUFFY, District Judge.**
*
This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
**
The Honorable Kevin Thomas Duffy, District Judge for the U.S.
District Court for the Southern District of New York, sitting by designation.
Allen Seaton appeals the district court’s order reversing the Administrative
Law Judge (ALJ) and remanding Seaton’s disability claim for further
administrative proceedings. Seaton contends that the district court should have
applied the credit-as-true rule and remanded for an immediate award of benefits.
We review the district court’s decision not to apply the credit-as-true rule for an
abuse of discretion. Harman v. Apfel, 211 F.3d 1172, 1178 (9th Cir. 2000). We
have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291, and we affirm.
The district court applied the three-factor Smolen test, which is the correct
legal rule in this circuit. See Smolen v. Chater, 80 F.3d 1273, 1292 (9th Cir. 1996);
see also United States v. Hinkson, 585 F.3d 1247, 1262 (9th Cir. 2009) (en banc)
(abuse of discretion standard).
Applying the Smolen test, the district court concluded that the ALJ needed to
resolve conflicts between improperly rejected medical opinions. Two treating
physicians opined on Seaton’s exertional limitations. One opinion is consistent
with disability; another suggests otherwise. If we credit both opinions as true, they
conflict. It was not illogical, implausible, or without support from inferences in the
record for the district court to defer to the ALJ the fact-finding task of determining
which opinion is more true than the other. See Hinkson, 585 F.3d at 1262.
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Seaton says that Dr. Crawford’s medical opinion is unrebutted in its
description of Seaton’s pain-related mental limitations, and that Seaton’s
improperly rejected symptom testimony is consistent with Dr. Crawford’s opinion.
Pointing to our decision in Benecke v. Barnhart, 379 F.3d 587 (9th Cir. 2004),
Seaton argues that we should forego the input of a vocational expert and determine
disability as a matter of law. Our review, however, is confined by the abuse of
discretion standard. The district court acted within its discretion by following the
more common approach in this circuit of remanding for consultation by a
vocational expert. See, e.g., Harman, 211 F.3d at 1180 (“In cases where the
testimony of the vocational expert has failed to address a claimant’s limitations as
established by improperly discredited evidence, we consistently have remanded for
further proceedings rather than payment of benefits.”); Burkhart v. Bowen, 856
F.2d 1335, 1340 (9th Cir. 1988) (“When a claimant’s non-exertional limitations are
sufficiently severe so as to significantly limit the range of work permitted by the
claimant’s exertional limitations . . . . the Secretary must take the testimony of a
vocational expert.” (citations and quotations omitted)).
Even if Seaton would be found to be disabled when the evidence at issue is
credited, a remand for further proceedings is independently appropriate where, like
here, “[t]he ALJ did not reach the issue of when [Seaton’s] disability began, and
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the evidence [he] wants credited does not identify a particular onset date.” Luna v.
Astrue, 623 F.3d 1032, 1035 (9th Cir. 2010).
AFFIRMED.
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