Summary
The Ninth Circuit reversed the district court’s judgment upholding the denial of Christopher A. Obrien’s applications for disability insurance benefits and supplemental security income. The court held that Obrien had not forfeited his challenges to the determination that his prior telemarketing work constituted past relevant work and that substantial evidence did not support that determination, requiring remand for further proceedings.
Topics
Practice areas
Questions Presented
- Whether Obrien forfeited in the district court his objections to the Commissioner's administrative-forfeiture arguments by failing to address them in his optional reply.
- Whether a judicially created issue-exhaustion requirement barred Obrien from challenging in federal court the ALJ's finding that his telemarketing work constituted past relevant work when he had not specifically raised that challenge before the ALJ.
- Whether substantial evidence supported the ALJ's determination that Obrien's 2003 telemarketing work was past relevant work under the applicable 15-year regulatory period.
- Whether substantial evidence supported the ALJ's determination that Obrien's 2009 telemarketing work constituted substantial gainful activity, or whether ambiguities required further development of the record.
Holdings
- Obrien did not forfeit his objections to the Commissioner's administrative-forfeiture arguments by failing to expressly address those arguments in his optional district-court reply.
- No judicially imposed administrative issue-exhaustion requirement barred Obrien from raising in federal court his challenge to the ALJ's finding that his telemarketing work qualified as past relevant work.
- Substantial evidence did not support treating Obrien's 2003 telemarketing work as past relevant work because it fell outside the applicable 15-year regulatory period.
- Substantial evidence did not support treating Obrien's 2009 telemarketing work as substantial gainful activity because critical ambiguities in the evidence required the ALJ to develop the record further.
Key quotations
“Accordingly, Obrien had no further responsibility to specifically flag the issue before the ALJ, and a judicially imposed issue-exhaustion requirement with respect to that issue is unwarranted under Carr.”
“Where, as here, additional development of the record by the ALJ is required to permit an adequate determination, the ALJ’s decision is not supported by substantial evidence and must be remanded for further proceedings.”
Factual background
Obrien alleged that medical conditions rendered him disabled beginning August 21, 2010. His work history included telemarketing in 2003 and 2009 and door-to-door sales work in 2013 and 2014. The ALJ found that Obrien could perform past relevant work as a telemarketer and sales representative, but the Commissioner conceded that substantial evidence did not support the sales-representative finding. The record was ambiguous regarding the duration and monthly earnings of the 2009 telemarketing work, including whether the work lasted three or four months and whether it was performed intermittently.
Procedural history
Obrien applied for Title II disability insurance benefits and Title XVI supplemental security income. An SSA ALJ denied the claims after finding that Obrien could perform past relevant work as a telemarketer and sales representative; the Appeals Council denied review. The district court upheld the denial, concluding that Obrien had forfeited and, alternatively, lacked merit in his challenges to the telemarketer finding. The Ninth Circuit reversed and remanded with instructions that the district court remand to the agency for further proceedings.
Remand instructions
The district court must remand the matter to the Social Security Administration for further proceedings consistent with the opinion, including further development of the record concerning whether the 2009 telemarketing work constituted substantial gainful activity.