James Hansen v. KILOLO KIJAKAZI, Acting Commissioner of Social Security

NOT FOR PUBLICATION
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
JAMES HANSEN,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
KILOLO KIJAKAZI, Acting Commissioner
of Social Security,
Defendant-Appellee.
No. 22-35793
D.C. No. 3:21-cv-00577-MC
MEMORANDUM*
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the District of Oregon
Michael J. McShane, District Judge, Presiding
Submitted August 22, 2023**
Portland, Oregon
Before: BENNETT, VANDYKE, and H.A. THOMAS, Circuit Judges.
James Hansen appeals the district court’s order affirming the denial of
disability insurance benefits and supplemental security income. “We review a
district court’s judgment upholding the denial of social security benefits de novo”
* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as
provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
** The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision without oral
argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2).
FILED
AUG 24 2023
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS

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and “set aside a denial of benefits only if it is not supported by substantial evidence
or is based on legal error.” Bray v. Comm’r of Soc. Sec. Admin., 554 F.3d 1219,
1222 (9th Cir. 2009) (internal quotation mark and citation omitted).
To establish a disability for purposes of the Social Security Act, a claimant
must prove that she is unable “to engage in any substantial gainful activity by reason
of any medically determinable physical or mental impairment ... which has lasted or
can be expected to last for a continuous period of not less than 12 months.” 42
U.S.C. §§ 423(d)(1)(A), 1382c(a)(3)(A). “In order to determine whether a claimant
meets this definition, the ALJ employs a five-step sequential evaluation.” Molina v.
Astrue, 674 F.3d 1104, 1110 (9th Cir. 2012), superseded on other grounds by 20
C.F.R. § 404.1502(a).
Here, the ALJ determined at step five that Hansen was not disabled before
February 23, 2019, because he could perform work in the national economy. In
reaching this conclusion, the ALJ found that Hansen had the residual functional
capacity (RFC) to perform simple, routine, and repetitive tasks that have a reasoning
level of one or two. This finding was supported by substantial evidence.
This case involves psychological opinions from three doctors: one examining
psychologist and two state-agency reviewing consultants. After reviewing each of
their opinions and the rest of the record, the ALJ afforded “significant weight” to the
examining doctor’s opinion and “great weight” to the state-agency doctors’

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opinions. Hansen does not challenge the ALJ’s conclusion regarding the examining
doctor, but rather argues that the ALJ failed to provide legally sufficient reasons to
reject the state-agency doctors’ conclusions.
But the ALJ did not reject the state-agency doctors’ conclusions, which the
ALJ rationally interpreted as supporting an RFC of performing simple, routine, and
repetitive tasks that have a reasoning level of one or two. See Woods v. Kijakazi, 32
F.4th 785, 788 (9th Cir. 2022) (“Where evidence is susceptible to more than one
rational interpretation, it is the ALJ’s conclusion that must be upheld.” (quoting
Burch v. Barnhart, 400 F.3d 676, 679 (9th Cir. 2005))). Both state-agency doctors
concluded, for example, that Hansen could occasionally “perform more
complex/detailed tasks” than one to two step tasks. The ALJ’s interpretation of the
state-agency doctors’ conclusions is consistent with the remainder of the medical
record, which showed that Hansen had several mental status examinations that were
largely normal and did not contain any specific functional limitations. The
examining doctor’s psychological evaluation revealed that Hansen has average
auditory attention and motor processing speed, and can repeat strings of digits
forwards and backwards, “revealing adequate attention for simple tasks.” And the
examining psychologist did not diagnose him with any cognitive deficits after
completing a formal IQ test. In addition, Hansen’s work history after his alleged
onset and three medical opinions show that Hansen has no more than a moderate

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limitation in his ability to understand, remember, concentrate, and persist.
Substantial evidence thus supports the ALJ’s RFC finding. See Woods, 32 F.4th at
788.
Rounds v. Commissioner Social Security Administration, 807 F.3d 996 (9th
Cir. 2015), and Leach v. Kijakazi, 70 F.4th 1251 (9th Cir. 2023), do not require us
to reach a different conclusion. Those cases involved a conflict between the ALJ’s
RFC as articulated by the ALJ and what the ALJ told the vocational expert, and a
conflict between the ALJ’s RFC and the vocational expert’s testimony. Here, there
is no claim that what the ALJ told the vocational expert was materially different than
the RFC as described by the ALJ, or that the ALJ’s RFC conflicted with the
vocational expert’s testimony. Instead, this case involves the more garden-variety
claim that the ALJ’s RFC itself is incorrect—e.g., is unsupported by the record. As
explained, the RFC is supported by substantial evidence.
Accordingly, the district court’s order is
AFFIRMED.

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