Sanders

MEMORANDUM ***

Petitioner Johnnie Sanders, Jr., appeals from a district court decision affirming an administrative law judge’s (ALJ) decision that Sanders is not “disabled” within the meaning of the Social Security Act. We reverse and remand for further proceedings.

I

The ALJ erred by rejecting examining psychologist John Robinson’s opinions that Sanders suffers from intellectual and psychological problems. The ALJ’s reasons were neither “clear and convincing” nor “specific and legitimate,” Edlund v. Massanari, 258 F.3d 1152 , 1158-59 (9th Cir. 2001), nor were the ALJ’s reasons based on substantial evidence on the record as a whole, see Andrews v. Shalala, 53 F.3d 1035, 1043 (9th Cir.1995).

Sanders’s alleged lack of credibility was not a valid basis for rejecting Dr. Robinson’s opinion. See Edlund, 253 F.3d at 1159 (holding that an ALJ could not rely on a claimant’s lack of overall credibility to reject the entirety of a psychologist’s report, including portions that the psychologist deemed reliable). Dr. Robinson’s opinion about Sanders’s intellectual problems was based almost entirely on the objective tests Dr. Robinson administered, not on Sanders’s subjective…