Thornglean Chanbunmy v. Comm Social Security

Opinions of the United
2009 Decisions States Court of Appeals
for the Third Circuit
3-26-2009
Thornglean Chanbunmy v. Comm Social Security
Precedential or Non-Precedential: Non-Precedential
Docket No. 08-3136
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Recommended Citation
"Thornglean Chanbunmy v. Comm Social Security" (2009). 2009 Decisions. Paper 1674.
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NOT PRECEDENTIAL
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
No. 08-3136
____________
THORNGLEAN CHANBUNMY,
Appellant
v.
MICHAEL J. ASTRUE,
COMMISSIONER OF SOCIAL SECURITY
____________
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF PENNSYLVANIA
(D.C. Civ. No. 2-07-cv-03098)
District Judge: J. Curtis Joyner
____________
Submitted Under Third Circuit L.A.R. 34.1(a)
March 2, 2009
Before: BARRY, WEIS and ROTH, Circuit Judges.
Filed: March 26, 2009
____________
OPINION
WEIS, Circuit Judge.
Claimant Thornglen Chanbunmy applied for disability benefits under SSI in
2002. In 2003, an administrative law judge (“ALJ”) denied benefits. After the Appeals
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Council denied the claimant’s request for review, the District Court remanded her
application for rehearing in 2004. A second hearing in front of an ALJ occurred in 2005.
The claimant was 35 years of age at the time of the second hearing, having
completed high school and one year of college. The ALJ found that she cares for her two
daughters and maintains their home. She had no vocationally relevant work experience.
The claimant complained of severe headaches, deep depression, and sinus pain. She has
received outpatient medical attention at varying intervals and has been prescribed
medications for her conditions.
The ALJ found that the claimant could perform simple, routine work.
According to the ALJ, this work must be as self-paced as possible and not require
teamwork or participation in an assembly line. Determining that such work exists in
significant numbers in the national economy and that claimant could successfully adjust
to employment thus defined, the ALJ concluded that claimant was not disabled under the
Social Security Act.
Claimant appealed to the Appeals Council, which denied her request for
review. In the District Court, a magistrate judge performed a thorough scrutiny of the
record and recommended affirming the ALJ’s decision. The District Court adopted the
magistrate judge’s recommendation and granted judgment to the Commissioner.
In this Court, claimant alleges that the ALJ erred by failing to adequately
explain her rejection of medical opinion evidence and her assessment of the claimant’s
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residual functional capacity. Claimant also contends that the ALJ failed to include all of
her functional limitations in the hypothetical posed to the vocational expert who testified.
We find no reversible error. The ALJ adequately explained her treatment of
Dr. Phuong Ngoc Trinh’s medical opinion evidence, the claimant’s Global Assessment of
Functioning scores, and her determination of the claimant’s residual functional capacity.
The hypothetical the ALJ posed to the vocational expert accurately portrayed the
claimant’s impairments. See Johnson v. Comm’r of Soc. Sec., 529 F.3d 198, 206 (3d
Cir. 2008) (“hypotheticals posed [to a vocational expert] must ‘accurately portray’ the
claimant’s impairments” (quoting Rutherford v. Barnhart, 399 F.3d 546, 554 (3d Cir.
2005))). As such, we conclude that the ALJ’s decision was supported by substantial
evidence and will, therefore, affirm the District Court’s order entering judgment for
defendant. See Rutherford, 399 F.3d at 552 (“[l]ike the District Court, we must uphold a
final agency determination unless we find that it is not supported by substantial evidence
in the record”).
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