From the Supremes to the District Court

 Last week, we discussed the two sedentary occupations identified in Biestek. Today, we peer into a 2025 district court decision, Ashley DK v. Dudek. The vocational witness is anonymous in the court decision. In response to a residual functional capacity for sedentary work, sitting six hours, and limited to routine tasks (a non-vocational term, not used in the DOT, SCO, O*NET, or ORS), the witness identified:

• Nut Sorter (DOT 521.687-086, 1991 WL 674226),

• Table Worker (DOT 739.687-182, 1991 WL 680217), and
• Staffer (DOT 731.685-014, 1991 WL 679811). 

The reference to staffer is a typo. Elsewhere in the decision, the court discusses stuffer. 

Nut sorter does not exist in significant numbers. We covered this in Biestek. SkillTRAN says 2,370 jobs. The OEWS says maybe 20,000 jobs but more likely 10,000 jobs in 14 sedentary unskilled DOT codes resident in inspectors, testers, sorters, samplers, and weighers (SOC 51-9061). Let me add one more erosive factor to our analysis from Biestek, sitting. A limitation to sitting six hours in a day does not mean the full range of sedentary work. Sedentary work requires standing/walking occasionally, from very little up to one-third of the day. Some sedentary work requires very little standing/walking, some sedentary work requires standing/walking a third of the day, and the rest fall somewhere in between. OccuCollect reports the ORS datasets:

51-9061 - Inspectors, Testers, Sorters, Samplers, and Weighers

Occupational Requirements – sitting, standing (including walking)	2018	2023	2025
choice of sitting or standing is allowed	31.8	30.1	34
choice of sitting or standing is not allowed	68.2	69.9	66
Percent of Day sitting is required (50th percentile - median)	-	20	20
Percent of Day sitting is required (75th percentile)	62.5	50	50
Percent of Day sitting is required (90th percentile)	90	85	75

 The two final datasets report sitting more than  75% of the day (six hours in a full-time day). Inspectors have some choice in a minority of jobs to choose when to  do the standing/walking required. The assumption that 10,000 jobs as a nut sorter do not require more than six hours of standing/walking is not tenable on the data. The 2025 data set uses that magic 75%. That data set does report standing at the 10th percentile at 25%. We must also remember that nut sorter is on the extra explanation required list. EM-24027 REV. 

Sedentary unskilled nut sorters that sit not more than six hours in a day in an age of automation do not represent a significant number of jobs. 

Table worker is in the same SOC group of inspectors, testers, sorters, samplers, and weigher (SOC 51-9061). Whatever sedentary unskilled jobs we discern from a OEWS-SOC analysis, that conclusion covers table worker as well. The 2025 data set reports 10.9% of inspector jobs require sedentary exertion.

SkillTRAN estimates 1,201 table worker jobs in the nation. SkillTRAN assumes that table worker exists in the plastic product (NAICS 326100) and the rubber product (NAICS 326200) manufacturing industries. Those industries employ 26 and 33 DOT codes, respectively, including table worker. The SOC-NAICS crosswalk form the Employment Projections and OEWS confirm the SkillTRAN mid-point:

51-9061 - Inspectors, testers, sorters, samplers, and weighers
31-33 - Manufacturing

NAICS	INDUSTRY	EP 2024 #'s	OEWS 2024 #'s
TE1000	Total employment	598,000	591,180
TE1000	Self-employed workers	8,100	No Data
TE1000	Total wage and salary employment	589,800	No Data
326000	Plastics and rubber products manufacturing	35,000	34,930
326100	Plastics product manufacturing	29,400	29,300
326200	Rubber product manufacturing	5,600	5,630

The industry selection by SkillTRAN is too broad. Table worker inspects linoleum tiles, flooring. That specific part of the economy is a small part of all other plastics product manufacturing (NAICS 326199) according to the NAICS Manual entry for the NAICS code and the alphabetical index. Using the plastic product industry group is too broad and the rubber product industry group does not apply when comparing the DOT industry and narrative statements to the NAICS Manual. County Business Patterns 2023 reports jobs in all occupations:

3261 - Plastics product manufacturing

NAICS	Industry Title	Jobs
3261	Plastics product manufacturing	677,305
32619	Other plastics product manufacturing	410,729
326199	All other plastics product manufacturing	392,611

Less than 60% of inspectors work in the industry studied in compiling the DOT. The number of table workers just got smaller. 

And finally, the infamous stuffer. The DOT is clear, this occupation exists in the toy-sports equipment industry. Toy stuffer belongs in the  packaging and filling machine operators and tenders (SOC 51-9111). SkillTRAN assumes this occupation works in the other miscellaneous manufacturing industry group (NAICS 339900). SkillTRAN estimates 265 jobs for stuffer. 

The straight OEWS-ORS calculator from OccuCollect estimates less than 924 jobs. The calculator gets there by assume less than 0.5% of jobs require sedentary exertion. The 2023 ORS accounts for 99% of jobs in light, medium, and heavy work. The ORS leaves open the possibility of less than 5% requiring heavy exertion and 0.5% requiring sedentary exertion. Both are less than statements. Less than means less than the number stated. 

51-9111 - Packaging and Filling Machine Operators and Tenders

Job Number Calculations
# of Jobs (OEWS 2024)	% Full-Time (O*NET 30.0)	# Full-Time
383,860	88%	337,797
# of Jobs	% Unskilled (ORS 2023)	# Unskilled
337,797	54.7%	184,775
# of Jobs	% Sedentary (ORS 2023)	# Sedentary
184,775	<0.5%	<924

SkillTRAN counts eight DOT codes at the SOC-NAICS intersection. Stuffer gets one-eighth of the jobs at that intersection. Applying the ORS to that intersection, stuffer should get less than 0.3% (54.7% unskilled x <0.5% sedentary). That application would reduce the SkillTRAN number of jobs from 265 to 6. 

I would be remiss if we avoided the SOEUQ. 

• Nut Sorter (DOT 521.687-086) -- 5,539 jobs, 92.2% full-time. 

• Table Worker (DOT 739.687-182) -- 4,430 jobs, 92.2% full time 

• Stuffer (DOT 731.685-014) -- 21 jobs, 93.5% full-time. 

Because the SOEUQ has an opaque methodology, I give the low numbers reported little weight. There are not a significant number of jobs in sedentary, simple, little or no judgment jobs in the national economy. Not in these occupations or any of the other 137 svp 1 and 2 sedentary occupations. 

End the farse through thoughtful rebuttal evidence to the ALJ. 

___________________________

Suggested Citation:

Lawrence Rohlfing, From the Supremes to the District Court, California Social Security Attorney (April 24, 2026)  https://californiasocialsecurityattorney.blogspot.com

The author has been AV-rated since 2000 and listed in Super Lawyers since 2008.