Donn Callahan v. Commissioner of Social Security

[DO NOT PUBLISH]
In the
United States Court of Appeals
For the Eleventh Circuit
____________________
No. 22-12701
Non-Argument Calendar
____________________
DONN HOWARD CALLAHAN,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
versus
COMMISSIONER OF SOCIAL SECURITY,
Defendant-Appellee.
____________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Middle District of Florida
D.C. Docket No. 8:21-cv-01273-AAS
____________________
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2 Opinion of the Court 22-12701
Before N EWSOM , G RANT, and B LACK , Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
Donn Howard Callahan appeals the district court’s affir-
mance of the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) denial of his
claim for a period of disability and disability insurance benefits. He
contends the administrative law judge’s (ALJ) finding the medical
opinion provided by Thanh Le, M.D., was minimally persuasive
and was not supported by substantial evidence. After review,1 we
affirm the district court.
The ALJ considers medical opinions from acceptable medi-
cal sources, which include licensed physicians and licensed psy-
chologists. 20 C.F.R. §§ 404.1502(a), 404.1513(a)(2). For claims
filed on or after March 27, 2017, the SSA’s new regulations apply.
Id. § 404.1520c. Under the new regulatory scheme, the ALJ must
articulate how persuasive she finds each medical opinion, but she
no longer must assign more weight to a treating source’s medical
opinion or explain why good cause exists to disregard it.
Compare
id. § 404.1520c(a)-(b)
with id. § 404.1527(c)(2). Rather, ALJs should
focus on the opinion’s persuasiveness in light of five factors:
1 We review a social security disability case to determine whether the Com-
missioner’s decision is supported by substantial evidence and review
de novo
whether the correct legal standards were applied.
Moore v. Barnhart, 405 F.3d
1208, 1211 (11th Cir. 2005). We will not decide the facts anew, make credibil-
ity determinations, or reweigh the evidence.
Winschel v. Comm’r of Soc.
Sec., 631 F.3d 1176, 1178 (11th Cir. 2011).
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22-12701 Opinion of the Court 3
(1) supportability; (2) consistency; (3) relationship with the claim-
ant; (4) specialization; and (5) “other factors that tend to support or
contradict” the opinion.
Id. § 404.1520c(c)(1)-(5).
Supportability and consistency are the most important fac-
tors and must be explained, but the ALJ is not required to explain
the other factors. 20 C.F.R. § 404.1520c(b)(2). “The more relevant
the objective medical evidence and supporting explanations pre-
sented by a medical source are to support his or her medical opin-
ion(s) or prior administrative medical finding(s), the more persua-
sive the medical opinions or prior administrative medical finding(s)
will be.”
Id. § 404.1520c(c)(1). Further, “[t]he more consistent a
medical opinion(s) or prior administrative medical finding(s) is
with the evidence from other medical sources and nonmedical
sources in the claim, the more persuasive the medical opinion(s) or
prior administrative medical finding(s) will be.”
Id.
§ 404.1520c(c)(2).
The ALJ’s conclusions are supported by substantial evi-
dence.
See Lewis v. Callahan, 125 F.3d 1436, 1440 (11th Cir. 1997)
(stating substantial evidence is any relevant evidence, greater than
a scintilla, that “a reasonable person would accept as adequate to
support a conclusion”). First, as the ALJ noted, Dr. Le’s opinion,
imposing strict limitations on Callahan’s capabilities, was unsup-
ported by his medical records which consistently reported substan-
tial pain relief from Callahan’s medications and normal levels of
strength. Second, the ALJ’s finding the opinion was inconsistent
with the findings of other practitioners was also supported by
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4 Opinion of the Court 22-12701
substantial evidence as multiple other doctors consistently found
that Callahan had full strength in all of his extremities and a normal
gait. While there is evidence, both in Dr. Le’s record and within
medical reports from other practitioners that could have supported
a finding of persuasiveness, this Court will not reweigh the evi-
dence when the ALJ’s decision is supported by substantial evi-
dence.
See Crawford v. Comm'r of Soc. Sec., 363 F.3d 1155, 1158-
59 (11th Cir. 2004) (stating we must affirm the ALJ’s decision, even
if the evidence may preponderate against it, so long as it is sup-
ported by substantial evidence). Additionally, the ALJ did not err
in failing to explicitly discuss this evidence in her analysis of Dr.
Le’s opinion as an ALJ is not required to discuss every piece of evi-
dence, and regardless, as acknowledged by Callahan , the ALJ did
discuss this evidence in her overall analysis of the RFC.
See Dyer
v. Barnhart, 395 F.3d 1206, 1211 (11th Cir. 2005) (stating while the
ALJ need not discuss every piece of evidence, her decision cannot
be a broad rejection that precludes a reviewing court from conclud-
ing she considered the claimant’s conditions as a whole). As such,
we affirm.
AFFIRMED.
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