United States District Court, D. South Carolina, Greenville Division
ORDER AND OPINION
This
matter is before the court for review of the Magistrate
Judge's Report and Recommendation (“Report”)
filed on September 19, 2018. (ECF No. 17.) The Report
addresses Plaintiff Virginia Latrice Smith's
(“Plaintiff”) claim for disability insurance
benefits (“DIB”) and recommends that the court
affirm the decision of the Commissioner of Social Security
Administration (“the Commissioner”).
(Id. at 1, 29.) For the reasons stated herein, the
court ACCEPTS the Report and
AFFIRMS the decision of the Commissioner.
I.
FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
The
Report sets forth the relevant facts and legal standards
which this court incorporates herein without a full
recitation. (ECF No. 17.) As brief background, on October 18,
2013, Plaintiff filed an application for DIB that was denied
initially and upon reconsideration. (Id. at 1.)
After a hearing was held on September 15, 2015, an
administrative law judge (“ALJ”) determined, on
March 30, 2016, that Plaintiff had the residual functional
capacity (“RFC”) to perform “less than a
full range of sedentary work” as defined in 20 C.F.R.
§ 404.1567(a). (Id. at 1; ECF No. 10-2 at 28.)
Specifically, the ALJ found that Plaintiff was “capable
of sitting for six hours of an [eight]-hour workday and
standing/walking for two hours of an [eight]-hour
workday.” (ECF No. 10-2 at 28.) Additionally, also in
regard to Plaintiff's RFC, the ALJ concluded that
Plaintiff could “operate a motor vehicle occasionally
and must avoid concentrated exposure to dust, odors, fumes
and other pulmonary irritants.” (Id.)
Moreover, Plaintiff's RFC is “limited to making
simple work-related decisions.” (Id.) Lastly,
the ALJ concluded that Plaintiff's subjective complaints
were not “entirely credibl[e]” because of
insufficient medical findings to support Plaintiff's
claims. (Id. at 30.) On this basis, and for numerous
other reasons, the ALJ denied DIB to Plaintiff because she
was not disabled for purposes of the Social Security Act
(“the Act”). (Id. at 35.)
Plaintiff's request for the Appeals Council (“the
Council”) to review the ALJ's decision was denied
on June 1, 2017. (Id. at 2.) Thus, the ALJ's
decision became the final decision of the Commissioner.
(Id.) See also Meyer v. Astrue, 662 F.3d
700, 704 (4th Cir. 2011) (stating that an ALJ's decision
was the final decision of the Commissioner when the Council
denied a request for review); Higginbotham v.
Barnhart, 405 F.3d 332, 336 (5th Cir. 2005) (holding
that the Commissioner's “final decision”
includes when the Council denies a request for review of an
ALJ's decision). Plaintiff filed the instant action on
August 2, 2017. (ECF No. 1.)
In the
Report, the Magistrate Judge reasoned that, based upon the
record, the ALJ's decision rested upon substantial
evidence. (See ECF No. 17 at 17-29.) Specifically,
the Report noted that the ALJ's RFC assessment accounted
for Plaintiff's “postural, environmental, and
mental limitations . . ., including her headaches.”
(Id. at 18.) Further, the Report explained that the
ALJ “set out . . . [P]laintiff's subjective
complaints in detail[, ]” but her subjective complaints
were not “entirely credibl[e]” because of
disputes with the medical evidence. (Id. at 20-26.)
For those reasons, the Report ultimately recommended that the
court affirm the decision of the Commissioner. (Id.
at 29.)
The
parties were apprised of their opportunity to file specific
objections to the Report on September 19, 2018. (ECF No. 17.)
On October 3, 2018, Plaintiff timely filed her Objection to
the Report and argued the following: (1) the ALJ failed to
“properly explain” her RFC; and (2) the ALJ
failed to “properly consider” her subjective
reports. (ECF No. 19 at 1, 3.) In essence, Plaintiff contends
that the ALJ failed “to make an accurate and logical
bridge between the evidence and his conclusion[s] . . .
.” (Id. at 4.) On October 16, 2018, the
Commissioner replied to Plaintiff's Objection. (ECF No.
20.) The Commissioner requests the court to adopt the
Magistrate Judge's Report because Plaintiff's
arguments “have already been fully presented in this
case” and the “Magistrate Judge . . . fully
addressed these issues in the Report . . . .”
(Id. at 1-2.)
II.
STANDARD OF REVIEW
The
Magistrate Judge's Report is made in accordance with 28
U.S.C. § 636(b)(1) and Local Civil Rule 73.02 for the
District of South Carolina. The Magistrate Judge only makes a
recommendation to this court, and the recommendation has no
presumptive weight. See Mathews v. Weber, 423 U.S.
261, 270-71 (1976). The responsibility to make a final
determination remains with the court. Id. at 271. As
such, the court is charged with making de novo
determinations of those portions of the Report to which
specific objections are made. See 28 U.S.C. §
636(b)(1); see also Fed. R. Civ. P. 72(b)(3). Thus,
the court may accept, reject, or modify, in whole or in part,
the Magistrate Judge's recommendation or recommit the
matter with instructions. 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1).
The Act
provides that “[t]he findings of the Commissioner of
Social Security as to any fact, if supported by substantial
evidence, shall be conclusive . . . .” 42 U.S.C. §
405(g). While the court is free to conduct a de novo
review of the Report, the court's review of the
Commissioner's final decision is “limited to
determining whether the findings are supported by substantial
evidence and whether the correct law was applied.”
Walls v. Barnhart, 296 F.3d 287, 290 (4th Cir. 2002)
(citing Hays v. Sullivan, 907 F.2d 1453, 1456 (4th
Cir. 1990); Preston v. Heckler, 769 F.2d 988, 990
(4th Cir. 1985)). “Substantial evidence has been
defined innumerable times as more than a scintilla, but less
than a preponderance.” Thomas v. Celebrezze,
331 F.2d 541, 543 (4th Cir. 1964). When assessing whether the
ALJ possessed substantial evidence, the court may not
“re-weigh conflicting evidence, make credibility
determinations, or substitute [its] judgment for that of the
[Commissioner].” Mastro v. Apfel, 270 F.3d
171, 176 (4th Cir. 2001) (quoting Craig v. Chater,
76 F.3d 585, 589 (4th Cir. 1996)). As such, the court is
tasked with a “specific and narrow” review under
the Act. Blalock v. Richardson, 483 F.2d 773, 775
(4th Cir. 1972).
III.
DISCUSSION
Plaintiff
makes two objections to the Magistrate Judge's Report.
(ECF No. 19 at 1-4.) First, Plaintiff argues that the ALJ
“failed to explain the RFC.” (Id. at 1.)
Second, Plaintiff alleges that the ALJ “fail[ed] to
properly consider [her] subjective reports.”
(Id. at 3.) Notably, both of these arguments were
before the Magistrate Judge when Plaintiff submitted her
Brief. (Compare ECF No. 19, with ECF No.
13.)
“The
purpose of magistrate review is to conserve judicial
resources.” Nichols v. Colvin, 100 F.Supp.3d
487, 497 (E.D. Va. 2015). Generally, a party's objection
to a magistrate judge's report must be “specific
and particularized” in order to facilitate review by a
district court. United States v. Midgette, 478 F.3d
616, 621 (4th Cir. 2007). “An ‘objection'
that does nothing more than state a disagreement with a
magistrate's suggested resolution, or simply summarizes
what has been presented before, is not an
‘objection' as that term is used in this
context.” Aldrich v. Bock, 327 F.Supp.2d 743,
747 (E.D. Mich. 2004). Thus, a de novo review is
wholly unnecessary for a district court to undertake when a
party seeks to rehash general arguments that were already
addressed in a magistrate judge's report. See Orpiano
v. Johnson, 687 F.2d 44, 47 (4th Cir. 1982);
Anderson v. Dobson, 627 F.Supp.2d 619, 623 (W.D.
N.C. 2007) (“An ‘objection' that . . . simply
summarizes what has been presented before, is not an
‘objection' as that term is used in this
context.” (citation and quotations marks omitted)).
See also Derrick v. Berryhill, No. 9:17-0323-TMC,
2018 WL 3434306, at *2 (D.S.C. July 17, 2018)
(“[O]bjections to the magistrate judge's [r]eport
are not a subsequent opportunity to reargue the merits of a
case-they are an opportunity to demonstrate . . . particular
errors in the magistrate judge's reasoning.”
(citations omitted)); Butler v. Berryhill, No.
4:16-cv-03209-JMC, 2018 WL 1556188, at *1 (D.S.C. Mar. 30,
2018) (“The court does not need to conduct a de
novo review of objections presented in the form of
‘[complete statements] of arguments already made, . . .
as these objections never cite specific conclusions of the
[report] that are erroneous.'” (quoting Smith
v. City of N. Charleston, 401 F.Supp.2d 530, 533 (D.S.C.
2005))); Jones v. Hamidullah, No. 2:05-2736-PMD-RSC,
2005 WL 3298966, at *3 (D.S.C. Dec. 5, 2005).
In the
instant case, the court has reviewed Plaintiff's Brief
(ECF No. 13), Plaintiff's Objection (ECF No. 19), and the
Report (ECF No. 17). After examining all of the relevant
pleadings, the court concludes that Plaintiff's Objection
restates arguments that were adequately addressed by the
Report. (Compare ECF No. 19 at 1-4, with
ECF No. 17 at 17-26.) Moreover, Plaintiff's Objection
largely mirrors her Brief considered by the Report.
(Compare ECF No. 19, with ECF No. 13.) As
such, a de novo review is unnecessary because
Plaintiff has “failed to guide the [c]ourt towards
specific issues needing resolution . . . .”
Nichols, 100 F.Supp.3d at 498 (holding that a
claimant failed to raise specific objections when he repeated
arguments raised in his initial brief). This court declines
to hear rehashed arguments from Plaintiff. Orpiano,
687 F.2d at 47. The court finds that the Report effectively
addresses Plaintiff's Objection and is well-reasoned.
See Fray v. Berryhill, No. 6:16-2916-TMC, 2018 WL
1224687, at *5 (D.S.C. Mar. 9, 2018) (adopting a
magistrate's report in which the court concurred
“with both the reasoning and the result”). As
such, the court finds that the ALJ's decision was
supported by substantial evidence. Therefore, the Report is
adopted herein. See Walls, 296 F.3d at 290.
IV.
CONCLUSION
After a
thorough review of Plaintiff s Objection (ECF No. 19) and the
Magistrate Judge's Report (ECF No. 17), the court
ACCEPTS the Magistrate Judge's Report
and Recommendation (ECF No. 17) and AFFIRMS
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