Berna v. Chater

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
Tenth Circuit
Byron White United States Courthouse
1823 Stout Street
Denver, Colorado 80294
(303) 844-3157
Patrick J. Fisher, Jr. Elisabeth A.
Shumaker
Clerk Chief Deputy Clerk

November 27, 1996

TO: All recipients of the captioned opinion

RE: 96-5057 Berna v. Chater
November 26, 1996

Please be advised of the following correction to the captioned decision:

The reference to Judge Lungstrum as Circuit Judge is incorrect. The
correct designation is District Judge. Please make the appropriate correction.

Very truly yours,

Patrick Fisher, Clerk

Susan Tidwell
Deputy Clerk
 PUBLISH

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
Filed 11/26/96
TENTH CIRCUIT

KATHLEEN E. BERNA,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v. No. 96-5057

SHIRLEY S. CHATER,
Commissioner, Social Security
Administration, *

Defendant-Appellee.

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF OKLAHOMA
(D.C. No. CV-94-1003)

Submitted on the briefs:

Paul F. McTighe, Jr. and Gayle L. Troutman, Tulsa, Oklahoma, for Plaintiff-
Appellant.

*
Effective March 31, 1995, the functions of the Secretary of Health
and Human Services in social security cases were transferred to the Commissioner
of Social Security. P.L. No. 103-296. Pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 25(d)(1),
Shirley S. Chater, Commissioner of Social Security, was substituted for Donna E.
Shalala, Secretary of Health and Human Services, as the defendant in this action.
Although the caption reflects this substitution, in the text we continue to refer to
the Secretary because she was the appropriate party at the time of the underlying
decision.
Stephen C. Lewis, United States Attorney, Joseph B. Liken, Acting Chief
Counsel, Region IV, Chris Carillo, Lead Attorney, Region VI, Office of the
General Counsel, Social Security Administration, Dallas, Texas, for Defendant-
Appellee.

Before BALDOCK and BRISCOE, Circuit Judges, and LUNGSTRUM, ** District
Judge.

LUNGSTRUM, District Judge.

Plaintiff Kathleen E. Berna appeals 1 from an order of the magistrate judge 2

affirming the decision of the Secretary to deny her social security benefits. On

the basis of expert vocational testimony identifying certain past relevant work

plaintiff could perform despite her impairments, the administrative law judge

(ALJ) found her not disabled at step four of the controlling analytical sequence.

**
Honorable John W. Lungstrum, District Judge, United States District
Court for the District of Kansas, sitting by designation.
1
After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel has
determined unanimously to grant the parties’ request for a decision on the briefs
without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(f) and 10th Cir. R. 34.1.9. The
case is therefore ordered submitted without oral argument.

2
Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 636(c)(1), the parties consented to proceed
before the magistrate judge. Accordingly, our jurisdiction arises under
§ 636(c)(3) and 28 U.S.C. § 1291.

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See generally Williams v. Bowen, 844 F.2d 748, 750-52 (10th Cir. 1988).

Plaintiff’s sole argument on appeal is that the ALJ deviated from proper step-four

procedure by relying entirely on the expert’s conclusory opinion that she could

return to prior work, without specifying on the record the pertinent demands of

such work and the factual basis for the conclusion that these demands could be

satisfied despite her recognized impairments, as required by Henrie v. United

States Department of Health & Human Servs., 13 F.3d 359, 361 (10th Cir. 1993).

See also Winfrey v. Chater, 92 F.3d 1017, 1024-26 (10th Cir. 1996). As

explained below, special considerations lead us to affirm the magistrate judge’s

order without reaching the merits of plaintiff’s contention.

The rigor of our review in social security matters is captured in the familiar

formulation that “[w]e closely examine the record as a whole to determine

whether the Secretary’s decision is supported by substantial evidence and adheres

to applicable legal standards.” Evans v. Chater, 55 F.3d 530, 531 (10th Cir.

1995). The scope of our review, however, is limited to the issues the claimant

properly preserves in the district court and adequately presents on appeal:

This court has on a number of recent occasions recognized that
waiver principles developed in other litigation contexts are equally
applicable to social security cases. Thus, waiver may result from the
disability claimant’s failure to (1) raise issues before the magistrate
judge, Marshall[ v. Chater, 75 F.3d 1421, 1426 (10th Cir. 1996)],
(2) object adequately to the magistrate judge’s recommendation,
Soliz[ v. Chater, 82 F.3d 373, 375-76 (10th Cir. 1996)], (3) preserve
issues in the district court as a general matter, Crow v. Shalala, 40

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 F.3d 323, 324 (10th Cir. 1994), or (4) present issues properly to this
court, Murrell v. Shalala, 43 F.3d 1388, 1389-90 (10th Cir. 1994).

James v. Chater, 96 F.3d 1341, 1344 (10th Cir. 1996). In particular, if on appeal

a claimant challenges only one of two alternative rationales supporting a

disposition, “[t]his choice of litigation strategy necessarily carries with it adverse

consequences for [the] appeal as a whole. Since the unchallenged [rationale] is,

by itself, a sufficient basis for the denial of benefits, [claimant’s] success on

appeal is foreclosed--regardless of the merits of [the] arguments relating to [the

challenged alternative].” Murrell, 43 F.3d at 1389-90.

In this case, the magistrate judge recounted and upheld the Secretary’s

determination that plaintiff could return to the past relevant work identified by the

vocational expert and, thus, was not disabled at step four. The magistrate judge

did not stop there, however:

The Court also finds that even if Plaintiff could establish that
she was incapable of performing her past relevant work, there is
sufficient evidence in the record establishing that even with
Plaintiff’s current impairments, there are a significant number of
other jobs in the national economy which she is capable of
performing. That is, there is sufficient evidence in the record for the
Secretary to carry her burden at step five of the sequential evaluation
process. The ALJ described the following hypothetical person to the
vocational expert: (1) 51 years old, (2) ninth grade education, (3)
medium ability to read, write and use numbers, (4) can perform
sedentary or light work, (5) has back problems, ulcers and a hernia,
(6) has chronic pain, and (7) has to change position from time to time
to relieve pain. R. at 185. The Court finds that this hypothetical
adequately describes Plaintiff’s impairments. With respect to this
hypothetical person, the vocational expert described five different

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 jobs with approximately 10,000 positions in Oklahoma. R. at 186.
This is sufficient to carry the Secretary’s burden at step five.

For the foregoing reasons, the Secretary’s decision is
AFFIRMED.

R. I at 16.

Plaintiff has offered no challenge to the latter, equally dispositive rationale

for affirming the Secretary’s decision. On the contrary, plaintiff complains only

that the ALJ failed to identify the functional demands of pertinent (past) work and

delegated to the vocational expert the task of matching such demands to her

impairments, neither of which is improper at step five:

At step five of the sequential analysis, an ALJ may relate the
claimant’s impairments to a VE and then ask the VE whether, in his
opinion, there are any jobs in the national economy that the claimant
can perform. This approach, which requires the VE to make his own
evaluation of the mental and physical demands of various jobs and of
the claimant’s ability to meet those demands despite the enumerated
limitations, is acceptable at step five because the scope of potential
jobs is so broad.

Winfrey, 92 F.3d at 1025. Significantly, plaintiff has not questioned either the

evidentiary basis underlying the alternative step-five analysis or, more generally,

the propriety of the magistrate judge supplying this supplemental rationale for the

Secretary’s administrative determination.

We discern no “compelling reason” to reach step-five issues plaintiff has

never raised. See generally Crow, 40 F.3d at 324. While, unlike prior social

security waiver cases, this appeal involves matters first introduced at the district

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court level, several considerations attenuate the significance of that distinguishing

circumstance.

The statute governing judicial review in the social security context

indicates that the traditional relationship between trial and appellate court is to be

maintained: “The [district] court shall have power to enter . . . a judgment

affirming, modifying, or reversing the decision of the Commissioner of Social

Security . . . . The judgment of the court shall be final except that it shall be

subject to review in the same manner as a judgment in other civil actions.” 42

U.S.C. § 405(g). Consistent with this understanding, Marshall, Soliz, and Crow

all impose waiver consequences for procedural omissions in the district court,

illustrating that the administrative origin of a social security appeal does not

negate the legal effect of interim proceedings conducted in district court. Finally,

and more specific to this particular case, we note that although the administrative

determination stopped short of step five, subsidiary findings necessary for an

alternative disposition at that stage were included in the body of the ALJ’s

decision, which recited the vocational expert’s opinion--given in response to a

hypothetical inquiry the substance of which has not been questioned--“that there

were a substantial number of other jobs in the regional and national economy

which the [claimant] could perform.” R. II at 21. In light of these considerations,

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we deem it appropriate to reject plaintiff’s appeal as effectively foreclosed under

Murrell, 43 F.3d at 1390.

The judgment of the magistrate judge, entered in the United States District

Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma, is AFFIRMED.

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