NOT PRECEDENTIAL
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
___________
No. 19-3681
___________
SHARON MARIE SMITH,
Appellant
v.
COMMISSIONER SOCIAL SECURITY
____________________________________
On Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Middle District of Pennsylvania
(No. 1-17-cv-01822)
District Judge: Honorable John E Jones III
____________________________________
Submitted under Third Circuit L.A.R. 34.1(a) on June 29, 2020
Before: KRAUSE, PHIPPS, and GREENBERG, Circuit Judges
(Opinion filed: July 10, 2020)
OPINION *
KRAUSE, Circuit Judge.
Sharon Marie Smith challenges the denial of her application for Social Security
disability benefits. Although Smith makes several challenges to the ALJ’s decision, they
*
This disposition is not an opinion of the full Court and pursuant to I.O.P. 5.7 does
not constitute binding precedent.
all distill to a single point: That decision was not supported by substantial evidence. See
Biestek v. Berryhill, 139 S. Ct. 1148, 1152 (2019). We disagree and will affirm.
Smith primarily argues that the ALJ erred in discounting Dr Rizvi’s 2014 Residual
Functioning Capacity (RFC) assessment. We disagree. True, Dr. Rizvi found in 2014
that Smith could sit, stand, and walk for a combined total of four hours and forty-five
minutes per day, while the ALJ determined in 2016 that Smith could perform these
activities for six hours per day. But between Dr. Rizvi’s assessment and the ALJ’s
determination, Smith had received chiropractic treatment that resulted in consistent and
significant improvement to her condition. Smith’s treatment records explain the ALJ’s
deviation from Dr. Rizvi’s assessment and constitute substantial evidence supporting her
RFC determination. 1
Smith next argues that the ALJ improperly minimized her wrist, hand, and finger
conditions. But Dr. Rizvi’s own assessment fully supports the ALJ’s determination that
these conditions were non-severe, and the ALJ limited Smith’s lifting and handling
activities in the RFC determination.
Finally, Smith argues that the ALJ improperly discredited some of Smith’s
testimony. We cannot discern which specific portions of Smith’s testimony she believes
the ALJ failed to address; Smith seems to simply disagree with the conclusions that the
ALJ drew from the facts elicited in her testimony. To the extent Smith contends that the
1
Smith’s reliance on Morales v. Apfel, 225 F.3d 310, 320 (3d Cir. 2000), is
misplaced: The ALJ did not discount the 2014 RFCs based on conflicting reports by
non-treating physicians but based on Smith’s improvement with treatment post-2014.
2
ALJ simply should have adopted her characterization of her symptoms as severe under
Mason v. Shalala, 994 F.2d 1058, 1067-68 (3d Cir. 1999), we conclude that the treatment
records supported the ALJ’s decision to discount that characterization.
We are sympathetic to Smith’s chronic pain and various ailments and express no
opinion on whether we would have reached the same conclusion as the ALJ if our review
were de novo. In this posture, however, our review is limited to assessing whether the
ALJ’s decision was supported by substantial evidence, and for the reasons we have
explained, it was. We therefore will affirm.
3