Driggers v. Astrue

Filing 25

ORDER ADOPTING REPORT AND RECOMMENDATIONS overruling defendant's objection and remanding the case to the Commissioner for proceedings 21 Report and Recommendations. Signed by Chief Judge William T. Moore on 8/21/09. (wwp)

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF GEORGIA WAYCROSS DIVISION SHARON DRIGGERS,

20 AUG 21 AM 10:16

IGA. Plaintiff,
bw

CASE NO. CV508-606

MICHAEL J. ASTRUE, Commissioner of Social Security, Defendant.

ORDER Before the Court is the Report and Recommendation of the Magistrate Judge (Doc. 21), to which timely Objections have been filed (Doc. 23) . After a careful de novo review o the Record, the Court concurs with the Magistrate Judge's Report and Recommendation. Therefore, the Magistrate Judge's Report and Recommendation is ADOPTED as the Opinion of the Court. For the reason that follows, Defendant's Objection is OVERRULED and this case is REMANDED pursuant to sentence four of 42 U.S.C. § 405(g). In the Objection, Defendant argues that the treating physician's opinion that Plaintiff Driggers was disabled was not a medical opinion under 20 C.F.R. § 416.927(a)(2). 1(Doc. 23 at 2.)

Notably, the Commissioner does not cite a single case in which this Regulation was understood to permit an Administrative Law Judge ("AU") to ignore a potentially conclusory opinion by a treating physician. (Doc. 23.) Likewise, this Court's independent review has shown none. To be sure, it is different to say that the Regulations would support a decision to discredit the

1

However, it appears to this Court that the only consideration the ALJ gave to the treating physician, Dr. Garcia, wao an implicit acceptance of several of the physician's diagnoses in a general listing of Plaintiff's medical conditions. (Doc. 3 at 26-27.)

With respect to the physician's opinions as t how these conditions affected the Plaintiff, the ALJ simply l ignored the records of the physician, including the statement that these conditions rendered her disabled .2 (Doc. 13 at 22-3.) This the

ALJ cannot do. See Sny der v. Cmm'n of Social Sc., 2009 WL 1492653, at *3 (11th dr. May 29, 2009) . Accordingly, Defendant's Objections are OVERRULED. SO ORDERED this

21'

day of August, 2009.

-< WILLIAM T. MOORE, JR., CHIEF JUDGE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF GEORGIA physician's opinion than it is to say the Regulatins allow the ALJ to ignore the opinion entirely without explanation. 2 The Court notes that the ALJ did take the time to explicitly discredit the Opinion of Dr. Waters, the Plaintiff's prior treating physician. (Doc. 13 at 32.) It is possible that the AU believed the prior treating physician was the current treating physician in this case; that the ALJ considered Dr. Garcia's opinion conclusory; or that Dr. Garcia's opinion wasdiscredited for other reasons, some of which would be permissible and others not. However, the AL's silence renders coherent review impossible, which is the exact reason why AUJ5 must explicitly explain any choice to disregard the diagnoses of a claimant's treating physician. See Sharfarz v. Bowen, 825 F.2d 278, 279 (11th Cir. 1987) ("[T]he AU [must] state with particularity the weight he gave the different medical opinions and the reasons therefor.")