The decisions are Nadon v. Saul and Nadon v. Bisignano. Same administrative case, twice to the District of Montana and twice to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. To avoid confusion, I refer to Saul and Bisignano to make it clear which decision we are discussing. Saul is unpublished memorandum disposition; Bisignano is a published binding precedent.
Saul finds error in three aspects with the ALJ decision, the district court proceedings, and the Commissioner's briefing. First, the three points of demarcation combined Nadon's depression and posttraumatic stress disorder in the decision. The COSS must address the impairments separately citing Ghanim v. Colvin, 763 F.3d 1154, 1160, 1164 (9th Cir. 2014). Second, the treating physician's opinions after the relevant date can relate back in time citing Taylor v. Comm'r of Soc. Sec. Admin., 659 F.3d 1228, 1232 (9th Cir. 2011). Nadon could prove a continuous disability with a retrospective diagnosis and opinion citing Flaten v. Sec'y of Health & Human Servs., 44 F.3d 1453, 1461 (9th Cir. 1995); Morgan v. Comm'r of Soc. Sec. Admin., 169 F.3d 595, 601 (9th Cir. 1999); Lester v. Chater, 81 F.3d 821, 832 & n.10 (9th Cir. 1995). Saul vacates and remand to consider PTSD, the treatment notes, and to address the PTSD as a distinct impairment from the coexisting depression. Saul is a solid win on a technical basis. Where the record establishes a different impairment than that assumed by the examining or non-examining physicians, the COSS must address those opinions separately.Nadon's claim goes back to another administrative proceeding, and she loses again before the ALJ. Nadon bypassed the AC and went straight back to federal court. Nadon v. O'Malley. I would and generally advise attorneys to bypass the AC for the second court action.
The district court rejected Nadon's claim of error. Nadon files her second appeal to the Ninth Circuit. Judge Ronald Gould is drawn on the panel, a repeat from Saul. The court assigns Richard Tallman and Morgan Christen to the case. Judge Christen writes for the panel in the published opinion.
We understand the scope of the ALJ decision from Bisignano. The ALJ found that Nadon could perform her past relevant work as a personal care attendant and in the alternative could perform other work as a housekeeper, marker, and small products assembler. Missing the RFC assessment, we jump to the district court decision in Nadon v. O'Malley. Nadon can perform light work; stand/walk six hours; frequently reach overhead; occasionally climb; frequently posture except occasionally crawl; limited to occasional interaction with coworkers, supervisors, and the public but able to tolerate one-on-one patient interactions; and able to tolerate usual work situations and changes in routine work settings.
It is clear that the work activity in 2020-2021 is not past relevant work as to a claim of disability in 2015. It may be past relevant work in 2020 or later and as Bisignano holds and it may be relevant to 2015 without evidence of improvement in the intervening five years, but it is not past relevant work for the insured period. Bisignano focuses on the issue raised, that the earnings were insufficient to cross the substantial gainful activity (sga) threshold. Because the ALJ made a step five other work determination, any error in past relevant work is harmless.
When a claimant returns to work, it is incumbent on the hearing representative to make a record of why. Nadon is entitled to a trial work period. Nadon may have gotten better to permit non-sga work. Nadon may have a special circumstance caring for an elderly person. The facts as recited by the district court and Bisignano fail to fill in the missing facts and considerations.
And the work activity problem takes center stage. Nadon argues that the ALJ rejected the treating physician opinion from 2016 and Nadon's own testimony solely because of the non-sga work activity five or more years after the relevant period, the date last insured.
Bisignano identifies the licensed clinical social worker and nurse practitioner as not accepted medical sources in this 2015 application for benefits. Bisignano recounts that the ALJ found the opinions of a treating physicians inconsistent with the treatment record in addition to inconsistent with post-onset work activity. The core holding and the reason the court published Bisignano:
the Commissioner was correct to assert that Nadon forfeited the argument that the ALJ did not provide sufficient reasons for discounting the opinions of the healthcare professionals. See Carmickle v. Comm'r, Soc. Sec. Admin., 533 F.3d 1155, 1161 n.2 (9th Cir. 2008) (refusing to address an ALJ's reasons for rejecting a claimant's assertions when the claimant "failed to argue th[e] issue with any specificity in his briefing").The case was lost at the district court. Failure to pull out every reason that the ALJ hinted at in the decision. And that is the hard part of appellate work. The courts are willing to read into an ALJ decision reasons that might have the slightest grain of origination. The reasonably discerned doctrine in found in Alaska Dep't of Envtl. Conserv. v. EPA, 540 U.S. 461, 497 (2004); Treichler v. Comm'r of Soc. Sec. Admin., 775 F.3d 1090, 1098 (9th Cir.2014); and Molina v. Astrue, 674 F.3d 1104, 1112-13 (9th Cir. 2012). The reasonably discerned doctrine has its counter point, that the courts consider the reasons actually stated by the ALJ. SEC v. Chenery Corp., 332 U.S. 194, 196 (1947); Pinto v. Massanari, 249 F.3d 840, 847-48 (9th Cir.2001); Connett v. Barnhart, 340 F.3d 871, 874 (9th Cir.2003).
Nadon suffered a tough loss. Whether the meager work performed five years after the date last insured was central or critical to the finding of not disabled in 2015 is unclear. In the old days, knocking out the core or several reasons could win a remand on the theory that the court could not be reasonably confident that the ALJ would have made the same decision without that reason(s). Today, the claimant must show the failure of every reason stated and every reason that a court might discern from the ALJ decision in order to win.
Rough job.
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Suggested Citation:
Lawrence Rohlfing, Briefing Forfeiture in the District Court -- Address Every Discernible Articulation, California Social Security Attorney (August 14, 2025) https://californiasocialsecurityattorney.blogspot.com
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