Buchanan v. SSA, Commissioner of
Filing
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OPINION AND ORDER OVERRULING PLAINTIFFS OBJECTIONS AND ADOPTING MAGISTRATE JUDGES REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION, Granting 14 Motion for Summary Judgment filed by SSA, Commissioner of, 11 Denying Motion for Summary Judgment filed by Mark Buchanan Signed by District Judge Marianne O. Battani. (KDoa)
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
EASTERN DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN
SOUTHERN DIVISION
MARK BUCHANAN,
Plaintiff,
Case No. 18-11563
v.
Hon. Marianne O. Battani
COMMISSIONER OF SOCIAL SECURITY,
Defendant.
_____________________________________/
OPINION AND ORDER OVERRULING PLAINTIFF’S OBJECTIONS
AND ADOPTING MAGISTRATE JUDGE’S REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION
I.
INTRODUCTION
Before the Court are objections (Dkt. 17) filed by Plaintiff Mark Buchanan to an
August 9, 2019 Report and Recommendation (“R & R”) issued by Magistrate Judge
Stephanie Dawkins Davis (Dkt. 16). In the R & R, the Magistrate Judge recommends
that the Court deny Plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment (Dkt. 11), grant the
Defendant Commissioner of Social Security’s motion for summary judgment (Dkt. 14),
and affirm the challenged decision of the Defendant Commissioner. For the reasons
discussed below, the Court OVERRULES Plaintiff’s objections and ADOPTS the
Magistrate Judge’s R & R in its entirety.
II.
FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
Neither party has objected to the Magistrate Judge’s statement of the procedural
history and background facts of this case regarding Plaintiff’s application for disability
insurance and supplemental security income benefits. Nor do they take issue with the
Magistrate Judge’s summary of the administrative proceedings and findings of the
Administrative Law Judge (“ALJ”) on Plaintiff’s claim for benefits. Accordingly, the Court
adopts these unchallenged portions of the R & R.
III.
STANDARD OF REVIEW
A district court must conduct a de novo review of any portion of a magistrate
judge’s R & R to which a party objects. 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1). The district court “may
accept, reject, or modify, in whole or in part, the findings or recommendations made by
the magistrate judge.” 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1). The requirement of de novo review “is a
statutory recognition that Article III of the United States Constitution mandates that the
judicial power of the United States be vested in judges with life tenure.” United States v.
Shami, 754 F.2d 670, 672 (6th Cir. 1985). Accordingly, Congress enacted 28 U.S.C. §
636(b)(1) to “insure[ ] that the district judge would be the final arbiter” of matters referred
to a magistrate judge. Flournoy v. Marshall, 842 F.2d 875, 878 (6th Cir. 1988).
The Court must affirm the decision of the Defendant Commissioner so long as “it
is supported by substantial evidence and was made pursuant to proper legal
standards.” Rogers v. Commissioner of Social Security, 486 F.3d 234, 241 (6th Cir.
2007). “Substantial evidence is defined as more than a scintilla of evidence but less
than a preponderance; it is such relevant evidence as a reasonable mind might accept
as adequate to support a conclusion.” Rogers, 486 F.3d at 241 (internal quotation
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marks and citation omitted). If the Commissioner’s decision is supported by substantial
evidence, “it must be affirmed even if the reviewing court would decide the matter
differently, and even if substantial evidence also supports the opposite conclusion.”
Cutlip v. Secretary of Health & Human Services, 25 F.3d 284, 286 (6th Cir. 1994)
(citations omitted).
When determining whether the Defendant Commissioner’s factual findings are
supported by substantial evidence, the Court confines its examination to the
administrative record considered as a whole. Wyatt v. Secretary of Health & Human
Services, 974 F.2d 680, 683 (6th Cir. 1992). There is no requirement, however, that
either the Commissioner or this Court must discuss every piece of evidence in the
record. Kornecky v. Commissioner of Social Security, No. 04-2171, 167 F. App’x 496,
508 (6th Cir. Feb. 9, 2006). Further, in reviewing the Defendant Commissioner’s
resolution of Plaintiff’s claim for benefits, this Court does not “try the case de novo,
resolve conflicts in evidence, or decide questions of credibility.” Bass v. McMahon, 499
F.3d 506, 509 (6th Cir. 2007).
IV.
ANALYSIS
A.
Objection No. 1
As the first of his two objections to the R & R, Plaintiff contends that his “ability to
work during the time period at issue was severely over-estimated by the ALJ, and
incorrectly affirmed by the Magistrate” Judge. (Dkt. 17, Plaintiff’s Objections at 5.) He
further asserts that “both the ALJ and the Magistrate Judge misconstrued medical
evidence and testimony” in conducting their purportedly flawed assessments of
Plaintiff’s medical conditions and resulting limitations. (Id. at 4.)
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As correctly observed by Defendant, however, Plaintiff’s generalized objection is
significantly undermined by his failure to identify any specific flaw in the Magistrate
Judge’s analysis in the R & R. Although Plaintiff cites various evidence in the
administrative record as demonstrating that he suffers from a number of severe
impairments, (see id. at 4-5), both the ALJ and the Magistrate Judge expressly
recognized as much, (see Admin. Record at 18; R & R at 3). Yet, as explained by the
Magistrate Judge, “the mere fact that a claimant suffers from a particular condition or
carries a certain diagnosis does not equate to disability or a particular” residual
functional capacity (“RFC”), and a “claimant’s severe impairment[s] may or may not
affect his or her functional capacity to work.” (R & R at 14 (internal quotation marks and
citation omitted).)
In this case, the Magistrate Judge pointed to the absence of “a medical opinion
or other medical evidence suggesting that [Plaintiff] is more limited than found to be by
the ALJ.” (Id. at 15; see also id. at 18.) Beyond lodging a conclusory objection,
however, Plaintiff makes no effort to specifically refute this finding by the Magistrate
Judge, nor to overcome the evidentiary deficiencies identified in the R & R. To the
contrary, the evidence Plaintiff cites in support of his objection consists entirely of his
own testimony at the administrative hearing and his self-reports of symptoms and
maladies in his visits with medical professionals. (See Plaintiff’s Objections at 4-5.)
Upon extensively surveying the entirety of the record, the ALJ explained why she did
not fully credit Plaintiff’s own statements regarding his conditions and limitations, (see
Admin. Record at 21-25), and Plaintiff has not suggested any basis for disturbing the
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ALJ’s findings on these points. Accordingly, the Court finds no error in the ALJ’s
assessment of Plaintiff’s RFC, nor in the Magistrate Judge’s analysis of this issue.
B.
Objection No. 2
Plaintiff next challenges the R & R on the ground that the Magistrate Judge
purportedly overlooked a “medical opinion” and “findings” that, in Plaintiff’s view, are
inconsistent with the hypothetical questions posed by the ALJ to the vocational expert.
(Plaintiff’s Objections at 6.) Specifically, Plaintiff points to a record from a Kresge Eye
Institute ophthalmologist, Dr. Frank Hwang, stating that Plaintiff suffers from left eye
“blepharospasm with associated memory loss, balance issues, hand shaking and
headaches,” (Admin. Record at 633), and he contends that this condition and its
corresponding symptoms prevent him from performing the jobs identified by the
vocational expert at the administrative hearing. He further asserts that this medical
record contradicts the Magistrate Judge’s finding that “no treating source provided an
opinion that [Plaintiff] had any specific functional limitations caused by his
blepharospasm or was more limited than found by the ALJ.” (R & R at 15.)
As Defendant points out in response, however, this challenge is flawed in two
respects. First, while Plaintiff characterizes the statement in Dr. Hwang’s treatment
note as a “medical opinion,” it appears that it merely reiterates Plaintiff’s subjective
report of the symptoms he attributed to his left eye condition. In particular, the
statement cited by Plaintiff from the third page of Dr. Hwang’s treatment note is
repeated nearly verbatim from the first page of this document, in which Dr. Hwang
recounts the conditions and symptoms reported by Plaintiff himself. (Compare Admin.
Record at 631 with id. at 633.) Nothing else in Dr. Hwang’s treatment note suggests
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that the passage relied upon by Plaintiff reflects this doctor’s findings upon examination,
such that the statement in question should be deemed the opinion of a treating
physician.
In any event, even assuming this statement evidences Dr. Hwang’s findings that
Plaintiff suffered from left eye “blepharospasm with associated memory loss, balance
issues, hand shaking and headaches,” (id. at 633), Plaintiff fails to explain how these
findings might refute the Magistrate Judge’s observation that “no treating source
provided an opinion that [Plaintiff] had any specific functional limitations caused by his
blepharospasm or was more limited than found by the ALJ,” (R & R at 15). The ALJ,
after all, found that Plaintiff suffered from the severe impairments of left eye
blepharospasm and headaches, (see Admin. Record at 18), and determined that
Plaintiff was capable of performing only a limited range of light work on account of these
and other conditions, including his cognitive impairments, anxiety, and memory issues,
(see id. at 20-25). Nothing in the cited passage from Dr. Hwang’s treatment note
identifies any specific functional limitations beyond those incorporated into the ALJ’s
findings and hypothetical questions to the vocational expert, and Plaintiff has not shown
(or even argued) otherwise. Accordingly, the Court concurs with the Magistrate Judge’s
determination that there is “no basis” to conclude that the ALJ’s hypothetical questions
were flawed in any respect. (See R & R at 16.)
V.
CONCLUSION
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The Court has reviewed de novo the entire record and the pleadings, giving
particular attention to those portions of the record relevant to Plaintiff's objections. 28
U.S.C. § 636(b)(1); see also Fed. R. Civ. P. 72(b)(3). For the reasons stated above, the
Court ADOPTS the Magistrate Judge’s August 9, 2019 report and recommendation
(Dkt. 16) in its entirety, and OVERRULES Plaintiff's August 23, 2019 objections to the
report and recommendation (Dkt. 17). Accordingly, Plaintiff’s motion for summary
judgment (Dkt. 11) is DENIED, Defendant’s motion for summary judgment (Dkt. 14) is
GRANTED, and the challenged decision of the Defendant Commissioner is AFFIRMED
pursuant to sentence four of 42 U.S.C. § 405(g).
IT IS SO ORDERED.
Date: September 25, 2019
s/Marianne O. Battani
MARIANNE O. BATTANI
UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
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