Case Name: Rutherford v. Barnhart (http://www.ca3.uscourts.gov/opinarch/041779p.pdf)

Court: U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit

Date: March 3, 2005

Expert: Vocational—Disability. Donald Millin

Issues: Exclusion of alleged impairments when judge interviewed expert.

Summary of Case: 48-year old child care worker sought SSI benefits for disability. She had sustained injuries to her arm and back in a slip and fall. The administrative law judge determined she still had the residual functional capacity (RFC) to continue working at other jobs.

Role of the expert: Administrative judge posed a series of hypothetical questions to the expert about the claimant’s physical and educational limitations. The expert posited that the worker could perform a variety of low-exertion jobs, such as apparel stock checker, arcade attendant and lost-and-found clerk

Expert analysis: The claimant challenged the expert testimony on grounds that the administrative judge’s questions did not accurately reflect her RFC. Specifically, she charged the judge excluded four impairments: extreme drowsiness caused by her medication, lack of manual dexterity, need to use a cane and need for a sit-stand option.

While a judge’s questions to the expert must accurately convey all of the claimant’s limitations as established by medical evidence, the judge did not have to question the expert about every claim the worker made. The Court held the judge reasonably excluded the four impairments as none of them interfered with her ability to perform other jobs. For example, the drowsiness did not interfere with her ability to function, as she still babysat for her own grandchild. The Court rejected that the vocational expert’s list of other jobs was inconsistent with the Dictionary of Occupational Titles.

She could not now claim disability for her obesity when she had not mentioned obesity as a condition that contributed to her inability to work. The court upheld the denial of SSI benefits.

Summary prepared by R. McCall, Student, University of California, Hastings College of Law