Opinions of the United
2005 Decisions States Court of Appeals
for the Third Circuit
4-18-2005
Wimberly v. Comm Social Security
Precedential or Non-Precedential: Non-Precedential
Docket No. 04-2509
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NOT PRECEDENTIAL
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
No. 04-2509
CLARK WIMBERLY
Appellant
v.
JOANNE B. BARNHART, COMMISSIONER OF SOCIAL SECURITY
ON APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE
EASTERN DISTRICT OF PENNSYLVANIA
District Court No.: 03-cv-03963
District Court Judge: The Honorable Franklin S. Van Antwerpen
Submitted Pursuant to LAR 34.1(a)
March 29, 2005
Before: ALITO, SMITH, and ROSENN, Circuit Judges.
(Opinion Filed: April 18, 2005)
OPINION OF THE COURT
PER CURIAM:
As we write only for the parties involved, we will not restate the evidence below.
We hold that the Administrative Law Judge (“ALJ”) committed no legal errors and that
the conclusion that Wimberly was not disabled within the meaning of the Social Security
Act during the period from July 20, 1998, to May 1, 2000, is supported by substantial
evidence. We therefore affirm the October 8, 2004, order of the District Court denying
Wimberly’s motion for summary judgment and granting the Commissioner’s motion for
summary judgment.
Wimberly’s appeal proceeds on three grounds. First, he claims that the ALJ erred
in not according controlling weight to the testimony of his treating physician, Dr. Charles
Bridges. Second, he claims that the ALJ erred in calculating his Residual Functional
Capacity (“RFC”), despite the assistance of a vocational expert, because the impact of his
obesity, his subjective complaints of pain, and the side-effects of his medications were
never considered. Finally, he claims that he was denied a fair hearing and review because
the transcript contains several “inaudible” entries.
Wimberly claims that the ALJ should have accorded controlling weight to the
testimony of his treating physician, Dr. Bridges. Under 20 C.F.R. § 404.1527(d)(2), a
treating physician’s opinion is entitled to controlling weight if it is “well-supported by
medically acceptable clinical and laboratory diagnostic techniques and is not inconsistent
with the other substantial evidence” in the record. Dr. Bridges has treated Wimberly
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since 1982, and in the absence of other relevant evidence, his opinion that Wimberly was
disabled would be entitled to controlling weight. The ALJ noted, however, that Dr.
Bridges’s testimony not only conflicted with the views of other doctors and therapists, but
was itself internally inconsistent. While we appreciate Wimberly’s argument that
differences in the forms filled out by Dr. Bridges contributed to varying assessments, the
ALJ’s determination that Dr. Bridges provided inconsistent opinions that conflicted with
the diagnosis and treatment plans proffered by other physicians adequately supports the
decision not to accord his opinion controlling weight.
The ALJ concluded that Wimberly possessed the RFC to perform a significant
range of sedentary work and therefore was not under a disability during the relevant time
period. This conclusion was reached by posing a series of hypotheticals to vocational
experts who agreed that jobs existed for someone like Wimberly who is capable of lifting
ten pounds and alternating from a sitting to a standing position every 30 minutes. This
conclusion is not undermined by the ALJ’s failure to account for non-exertional
impairments because the ALJ specifically considered Wimberly’s complaints of pain,
dizziness, and drowsiness and concluded that they lacked credibility insofar as they were
inconsistent with the conservative course of treatment prescribed by his physicians. See
20 C.F.R. 404.1529(c)(3). Because the ALJ set forth a reasoned basis, grounded in the
record, for concluding that Wimberly’s complaints were not credible, this portion of the
decision is supported by substantial evidence. See Thompson v. Barnhart, 281 F.Supp.2d
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770, 780 -81 (E.D.Pa. 2003).
Nor does the fact of Wimberly’s obesity undermine the ALJ’s RFC analysis.
Wimberly is correct in arguing that 20 C.F.R. 404.1529(c) imposes a broad duty on ALJs
to evaluate the intensity and persistence of a claimant’s symptoms, Hartranft v. Apfel, 181
F.3d 358, 362 (3d Cir. 1999), and also in noting that Social Security Ruling 02-1p
instructs ALJs to use their own “judgment to establish the presence of obesity based on
the medical findings and other evidence in the case record, even if a treating or examining
source has not indicated a diagnosis of obesity.” We note, however, that nothing in SSR
02-1p compels a finding of obesity in the absence of an uncontroverted diagnosis by a
physician who has examined the claimant. The issue on appeal turns on the RFC
analysis, however, not on whether Wimberly was obese. As the ALJ stated in his
decision, there is no medical evidence in the record associating the claimant’s apparent
obesity with any functional limitation, nor did Wimberly ever attribute any disability to
his weight. The duty to evaluate a claimant’s symptoms imposed by 20 C.F.R.
404.1529(c) does not extend to guessing what the impact of those symptoms may be.
Rather, 20 C.F.R. 404.1512(c) and 20 C.F.R. 404.1545(a)(3) explicitly impose on the
claimant the burden of furnishing evidence supporting the existence of a condition and
the effect of that condition on the claimant’s ability to work on a sustained basis. While
the hypotheticals posed to vocational experts by an ALJ during the RFC analysis “must
reflect all of a claimant’s impairments that are supported by the record,” Chrupcala v.
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Heckler, 829 F.2d 1269, 1276 (3d Cir. 1987), a condition that does not result in any
functional impairment is not relevant to the RFC analysis. The ALJ’s conclusion that the
medical record did not show that Wimberly’s weight resulted in any functional limitation
is supported by substantial evidence, and therefore the hypotheticals posed during the
RFC analysis adequately reflected all of claimant’s impairments.
Finally, we will not consider Wimberly’s due process claim based on inaudible
omissions found in the hearing transcript because he failed to raise this issue in the
District Court. Krysztoforski v. Chater, 55 F.3d 857, 860-61 (3d Cir. 1995). The force of
Krysztoforski is unaffected by the Supreme Court’s decision in Sims v. Apfel, 530 U.S.
103 (2000). The holding in Sims that a Social Security claimant is not barred from
presenting arguments to the courts that were not raised in administrative proceedings does
not extend to arguments not presented in adversarial proceedings in the District Court.
See generally Gass v. Virgin Islands Telephone Corp., 311 F.3d 237, 246 (3d Cir. 2002).
For the above reasons, we affirm.
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