Gump
Gump v. Commissioner of the Social Security Administration
Opinion
Lead Opinion
MEMORANDUM ***
Appellant William Gump (“Appellant”) appeals the district court’s decision affirming the Commissioner of Social Security’s denial of his benefits claims. The facts and procedural history are familiar to the parties, and we do not repeat them here. We review the district court’s decision de novo, Tackett v. Apfel, 180 F.3d 1094, 1097 (9th Cir.1999), but we “must affirm if substantial evidence supports the Commissioner’s decision and if the Commissioner applied the correct legal standard,” Lewis v. Apfel, 236 F.3d 503, 509 (9th Cir.2001). Appellant contends that the Commissioner’s decision was not so supported for five reasons.
First, Appellant asserts that the ALJ improperly rejected his subjective testimony and failed to consider whether his pain was psychologically based. We reject the first half of Appellant’s argument because the ALJ properly rejected Appellant’s “testimony about severity of [his] symptoms with specific findings stating clear and convincing reasons for doing so.” Batson v. Comm’r, 359 F.3d 1190, 1196 (9th Cir.2004) (internal quotation marks omitted). We reject the latter half of Appellant’s argument — that the ALJ failed to consider whether his…