James Orr v. COMMISSIONER OF SOCIAL SECURITY Appeal from the United States District Court For…

NOT PRECEDENTIAL
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
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No. 02-2628
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JAMES ORR,
Appellant
v.
COMMISSIONER OF SOCIAL SECURITY
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Appeal from the United States District Court
For the Western District of Pennsylvania
D.C. No.: 01-cv-00042J
District Judge: Honorable William L. Standish
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Submitted Under Third Circuit LAR 34.1(a) December 20, 2002
Before: SLOVITER, McKEE, and ROSENN, Circuit Judges
(Filed: January 7, 2003)
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OPINION OF THE COURT
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ROSENN, Circuit Judge.
The appellant, James Orr, has appealed from a decision of the Social Security
Administration denying his claim for Disability Insurance Benefits (DIB). Following initial
and reconsideration denials, an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) held a hearing on

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November 30, 1998, and issued an unfavorable decision to the claimant. The Appeals
Council denied the claimant’s request for review, making the ALJ decision the final
decision of the Commissioner.
Plaintiff then filed this action in the United States District Court for the Western
District of Pennsylvania. The District Court entered an order granting the Commissioner’s
motion for summary judgment and denying the appellant’s cross motion for summary
judgment. The appellant timely appealed.
The facts are well-known to the parties and we refer to them only briefly. On
appeal, the claimant presents three issues, each of which was raised in the District Court:
(1) whether the Commissioner is bound by the treating physician’s opinion where no
contrary medical evidence exists; (2) whether the Commissioner failed to properly
consider and credit claimant’s objective symptoms; and (3) whether the finding that the
claimant can perform light work is supported by substantial evidence.
Our standard of review is limited to determining whether the District Court
properly found that the Commissioner’s decision is supported by substantial evidence. We
do not undertake de novo review or determine questions of credibility. This is the same
standard of review that governs the District Court’s judicial review of the Commissioner’s

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decision.
The District Court carefully reviewed the record in this case and each of the
contentions raised by the appellant. The District Court found each of Orr’s arguments
unpersuasive. Specifically, the court concluded that the ALJ’s stated reasons for rejecting
Dr. Shaheen’s opinion that plaintiff is totally disabled were proper and supported by
substantial evidence. The District Court noted that after examining each of Dr. Shaheen’s
letter opinions that they were inconsistent. His statement, dated January 29, 1998, which
was prepared in connection with claimant’s application for disability retirement from his
employment with Blair County, showed that claimant suffered from heart disease and stress
syndrome, rendering him disabled as of January 8, 1998. However, the court observed that
in the same statement, Dr. Shaheen noted that the claimant had a slight limitation of
functional capacity and was capable of performing light work.
Shortly after this statement, the claimant underwent further testing for his
complaints of chest discomfort and, based on the result of those tests, his cardiologist
reported to Dr. Shaheen that plaintiff continued to do “quite well” following his heart
surgery, and that there was no evidence that his complaints of chest discomfort were
cardiac in origin. On April 8, 1998, Dr. Shaheen wrote a letter stating that he was treating

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the claimant for stress syndrome that rendered him disabled “at that time.” The District
Court again observed that this statement by the doctor failed to mention plaintiff’s ankle
injury or heart disease. In a “daily activities questionnaire” prepared by the claimant two
months later, he reported very little, if any, limitations on his activities of daily living.
Finally, the Court noted that on December 4, 1998, in another letter prepared by Dr.
Shaheen, the doctor stated that claimant was totally disabled due to the limitations in his
ability to walk and stand as a result of the residuals of a gunshot wound to his right ankle
thirty years before, and his open heart surgery.
The District Court found that these limitations are not supported by objective
medical evidence and are inconsistent with the claimant’s activities of daily living as
reported by the claimant himself. Moreover, the Court noted that in this letter “Dr.
Shaheen [nowhere mentions] plaintiff’s stress syndrome, which was the primary reason
given by plaintiff at the hearing before the ALJ or his claim that he could no longer perform
his work as a hearing officer for Blair County.”
On examining the record, the District Court found that the ALJ in his decision
noted that the claimant had never been diagnosed with an anxiety or stress disorder by a
mental health professional and that this condition had been treated solely by Dr. Shaheen

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with medication. According to Orr, the medication does not produce any side effects, and
Dr. Shaheen had never recommended any other type of treatment to control Orr’s anxiety
because the doctor believed that the medication was “keeping things under control.”
The District Court, therefore, concluded that the ALJ was not bound by Dr.
Shaheen’s opinion that plaintiff became totally disabled as of January 8, 1998. We agree.
In addition, the District Court observed that there was other evidence of record to support
the ALJ’s determination that the claimant was not totally disabled. Specifically, the Court
referred to three medical consultants who completed Physical Residual Functional
Capacity Assessments in connection with plaintiff’s application for disability insurance
benefits wherein they asserted that plaintiff could perform light work. Another medical
consultant completed a Psychiatric Review Technique Form in which he concluded that the
plaintiff had no medically determinable impairment.
After reviewing the briefs and record in this case on appeal, we see no error of the
District Court with respect to the issue raised on this appeal. The judgment is affirmed.
Costs taxed against the appellant.

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TO THE CLERK:
Please file the foregoing opinion.
/s/ Max Rosenn
Circuit Judge

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