Lloyd v. Commissioner of Social Security Administration

Filing 25

ORDER denying 24 Motion to Amend/Correct. Signed by Judge David G Campbell on 11/21/2017.(DGC, nvo)

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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

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FOR THE DISTRICT OF ARIZONA

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Kelly Lloyd,

No. CV-17-00099-PHX-DGC
Plaintiff,

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v.

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ORDER

Commissioner of Social Security
Administration,

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Defendant.

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Defendant Commissioner moves for reconsideration of this Court’s order vacating

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and remanding the Commissioner’s decision. Doc. 24. A motion for reconsideration will

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be denied “absent a showing of manifest error or a showing of new facts or legal

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authority that could not have been brought to [the Court’s] attention earlier with

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reasonable diligence.” LRCiv 7.2(g)(1); see Carroll v. Nakatani, 342 F.3d 934, 945 (9th

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Cir. 2003).

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Defendant objects to the Court’s finding of legal error in the residual functional

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capacity (“RFC”) assessment by the Administrative Law Judge (“ALJ”). Doc. 24 at 2-7.

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Defendant mistakenly assumes that the Court held that Plaintiff Kelly Lloyd’s mild

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mental impairments must be reflected in the RFC. Doc. 24. The Court did not reach this

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conclusion. Relying on statutory and Ninth Circuit law, the Court noted that “the ALJ

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must consider the combined effects of all impairments, both severe and non-severe.”

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Doc. 22 at 5 (emphasis added). Yet the ALJ’s RFC analysis did not address Plaintiff’s

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mild mental impairments; it “addresse[d] only Plaintiff’s physical impairments and the

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credibility of her symptom testimony.” Doc. 22 at 5. Because the ALJ’s opinion did not

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consider the mild mental impairments in its RFC analysis, the ALJ committed legal error.

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Id. The ALJ can correct this error by discussing Plaintiff’s mild mental impairments in

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the process of arriving at the RFC assessment.

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Defendant’s harmless error argument is not persuasive. Defendant argues that

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Plaintiff could perform unskilled work with mild mental impairments. Doc. 24 at 7. But

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“the vocational expert testified that mental impairments might preclude some or all

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work.” Doc. 22 at 6. The Court cannot “conclude from the record that the ALJ would

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have reached the same result absent the error.” Molina v. Astrue, 674 F.3d 1104, 1115

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(9th Cir. 2012). The motion will be denied.

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IT IS ORDERED that the motion for reconsideration (Doc. 24) is denied.

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Dated this 21st day of November, 2017.

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