Henry Mendoza v. Michael Astrue

MEMORANDUM

We review de novo a district court’s judgment upholding the denial of social security benefits. Lingenfelter v. Astrue, 504 F.3d 1028, 1035 (9th Cir.2007). We affirm and remand.

I.

Mendoza challenges the Administrative Law Judge’s (ALJ) conclusion that Mendoza’s testimony about “the intensity, persistence and limiting effects of’ his symptoms was not fully credible. The ALJ gave specific, clear and convincing reasons why she believed Mendoza’s asthma symptoms were not as severe as he claimed, thereby justifying her finding that his symptom testimony was not fully credible. See Lingenfelter, 504 F.3d at 1035-36 . She did this by pointing to the following facts: 1) Mendoza’s admission that he slept when he lay down for four to five hours a day, which could suggest that his inactivity was voluntary and not due, as he claimed, to asthma-related respiratory distress; 2) his “spotty” earnings history even prior to the onset of his alleged disability — as the district court observed, he apparently worked about half the time between 1990 and 2001; 3) his ability to travel to California for three weeks in 2005, and his daily activities — which included driving three times a…