United States Ninth Circuit

Judgment affirming the Social Security Commissioner's denial of Supplemental Security Income disability benefits to plaintiff-claimant is reversed and remanded for further proceedings, where: 1) the administrative law judge (ALJ) found that plaintiff retained the residual functional capacity to perform simple, routine, or repetitive tasks, but concluded that plaintiff was not disabled because he was able to perform two occupations that required the ability to perform Level 3 Reasoning on the Department of Labor's General Education Development scale; 2) there is an apparent conflict between plaintiff’s limitation to simple, routine, or repetitive tasks and the demands of Level 3 Reasoning, and because the ALJ failed to recognize this inconsistency, she did not ask the vocational expert to explain it; and 3) the ALJ erred in failing to reconcile this apparent conflict, and the error was not harmless.

Appellate Information

• Decided 02/20/2015
• Published 02/20/2015

Judges

• Nguyen

Court

• United States Ninth Circuit

Counsel