FILED
NOT FOR PUBLICATION
OCT 07 2015
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
SHERAL ANN SAMONS, No. 13-16231
Plaintiff - Appellant, D.C. No. 2:12-cv-01727-DGC
v.
MEMORANDUM*
CAROLYN W. COLVIN, Commissioner
of Social Security,
Defendant - Appellee.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the District of Arizona
David G. Campbell, District Judge, Presiding
Argued and Submitted September 16, 2015
San Francisco, California
Before: CHRISTEN and FRIEDLAND, Circuit Judges, and LEMELLE,** District
Judge.
Claimant Sheral Samons seeks review of the denial of her application for
disability insurance benefits. Samons contends the administrative law judge
*
This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by 9th Cir. R. 36-3.
**
The Honorable Ivan L.R. Lemelle, District Judge for the U.S. District
Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, sitting by designation.
(“ALJ”) erred in finding her not credible, in giving too little weight to the
testimony of her treating and examining physicians, and in finding that she does
not suffer from generalized pain syndrome or a severe mental health condition.
We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, and we reverse and remand.
1. The ALJ found that Samons lacked credibility and gave three reasons to
support the finding: the record suggested that Samons sought mental health
treatment to build evidence for her Social Security application rather than to treat
her symptoms; Samons misrepresented her work experience; and Samons’s
description of her symptoms was “vague and general.” The record does provide
some support for the ALJ’s credibility determination. However, “[t]he purpose for
which medical reports are obtained does not provide a legitimate basis for rejecting
them,” Lester v. Chater, 81 F.3d 821, 832 (9th Cir. 1995), and the record indicates
that Samons may have had two call center jobs, which might have accounted for
the apparent inconsistencies in Samons’s testimony about her work experience.
Finally, though Samons’s answers to questions about her symptoms were lacking
in detail, the questions did not necessarily call for elaboration, nor was she asked to
elaborate when she testified.
2. Even assuming substantial evidence supports the ALJ’s negative
credibility determination, the ALJ’s decision to give Dr. Perry’s opinion little
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weight and her finding that Samons does not suffer from generalized pain
syndrome or a severe mental health condition must be reconsidered on remand.
The ALJ gave Dr. Perry’s opinion “little weight” because it was
“inconsistent with her own treatment notes” and because the ALJ thought Dr. Perry
may have been personally biased toward Samons. As for the treatment notes, the
ALJ appears to have misunderstood the chronology and import of Dr. Perry’s
assessments. The ALJ explained, “it is difficult to reconcile Dr. Perry’s opinion
that the claimant suffers [from] ‘marked’ limitation . . . with her previous
assessment that the claimant ‘improved on her own and with therapy.’” The
finding of “marked limitations,” however, was made over a month before the
finding of improvement. Moreover, a finding of improvement is not necessarily
inconsistent with Samons still having marked limitations. See Holohan v.
Massanari, 246 F.3d 1195, 1205 (9th Cir. 2001) (“That a person who suffers from
severe panic attacks, anxiety, and depression makes some improvement does not
mean that the person’s impairments no longer seriously affect her ability to
function in a workplace.”). Indeed, only a week before the “improved” assessment
Dr. Perry spoke with Samons and noted that she “remains depressed.” The ALJ
further erred by speculating that Dr. Perry’s diagnoses may have been made “in an
effort to assist a patient with whom . . . she sympathizes for one reason or another,”
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or that it was based on an attempt to “satisfy [her] patient[’]s requests and avoid
unnecessary doctor/patient tension.” The record does not suggest that Dr. Perry
breached her professional obligations or altered her medical opinion out of
sympathy for Samons or to avoid unnecessary tension with Samons.
3. The determination that Samons does not have a medically determinable
generalized pain syndrome also must be reconsidered on remand. In reaching this
finding, the ALJ noted that “trigger points are necessary to make [the] diagnosis
[of fibromyalgia],” and found that “the record contains no such trigger point
examination.” But Samons testified that such testing was performed, and on April
5, 2010 Dr. Chinikhanwala reported that Samons “had 14/18 fibromyalgia tender
points.” Dr. Chinikhanwala concluded with an impression of “generalized pain
syndrome.” On remand, Dr. Chinikhanwala’s opinion shall be reconsidered to
determine whether this record constitutes a diagnosis of fibromyalgia. If so, the
ALJ shall assess whether this impacts Samons’s ultimate disability determination.
We remand to the ALJ to reconsider whether Samons lacked credibility;
whether she suffers from a medically determinable physical impairment, including
generalized pain syndrome or fibromyalgia; whether she suffers from a medically
determinable severe mental health condition; and whether these conditions affect
her ultimate disability determination.
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REVERSED AND REMANDED.
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