Disability Benefits

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7^th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: Kevin J. Loveless v. Carolyn W. Colvin

Case No.: 15-2235

Officials: MANION, KANNE, and WILLIAMS, Circuit Judges.

Practice Area: Disability Benefits

Administrative law judge decision that appellant could conduct light work with restrictions supported by sufficient evidence.

“Loveless next challenges the ALJ’s use of language routinely criticized by this court as “meaningless boilerplate.” See Parker v. Astrue, 597 F.3d 920, 922 (7th Cir. 2010); see also Bjornson v. Astrue, 671 F.3d 640, 644–45 (7th Cir. 2012); Martinez v. Astrue, 630 F.3d 693, 696 (7th Cir. 2011). Loveless argues that the language is faulty and represents forbidden backward analysis requiring remand. But the use of boilerplate is not a ground to remand if the ALJ justified his credibility assessment based on the evidence. Murphy v. Colvin, 759 F.3d 811, 816 (7th Cir. 2014); Pepper v. Colvin, 712 F.3d 351, 367–68 (7th Cir. 2013). And here, although acknowledging Loveless’s testimony that he could not work, the ALJ reasoned that this contention was contradicted by the claimant’s activities of daily living, his routine and conservative medical treatment since 2011, and many earlier re‐ ports of minimal or no pain”

Affirmed

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Attorney Derek A. Hawkins is the managing partner at Hawkins Law Offices LLC, where he heads up the firm’s startup law practice. He specializes in business formation, corporate governance, intellectual property protection, private equity and venture capital funding and mergers & acquisitions. Check out the website at www.hawkins-lawoffices.com or contact them at 262-737-8825.