Oklahoma District Court Reverses ALJ

March 19, 2015. This case was referred by a non-attorney representative from Oklahoma. The court remanded on the basis of a constellation of problems with the ALJs decision, which centered around her evaluation of plaintiff’s mental impairments. First, despite the favorable opinion issued by SSA’s examining psychologist, the ALJ never indicated what weight this opinion carried in her mind, and she did not explicitly reject any limitations set forth in that opinion. Second, although plaintiff’s treating sources were “non-acceptable sources”, the ALJ improperly rejected their opinions on the basis of their status as non-acceptable sources alone. Moreover, the ALJs mental RFC for “simple work in and habituated and object oriented work setting” was in sufficiently specific to account for her own findings that the claimant had moderate deficiencies in social functioning and in concentration, persistence and/or pace.