Nadine Reed v. Larry G. Massanari, Acting Commissioner of Social Security

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• holding where available medical evidence is insufficient to determine the severity of the claimant’s impairment, the ALJ should order a consultative examination by a specialist
• noting the “important role played by independent medical specialists” in SSA cases, and overturning the ALJ’s decision not to order an outside physician review
• noting the “important role played by independent medical specialists” in SSA cases, and overturning the ALJ’s decision not to order an outside physician review
• noting that a case “normally require[s] a consultative examination” if “additional evidence needed is not contained in the records,” or if there is “an ambiguity or insufficiency in the evidence that must be resolved” (internal quotations marks and alterations omitted)
• warning against the “practice of determining a claimant’s ability to perform past work on the sole basis of a categorical RFC assessment” (emphasis added)
• remanding to different ALJ for fair consideration of evidence despite no 17 indication of ALJ bias

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).