Editor’s Note: Law Week Colorado edits court opinion summaries for style and, when necessary, length.
After Corban Elmore’s teenage son suffered a drug overdose at Elmore’s home, law enforcement officers secured the scene and prohibited anyone from entering the house. The officers then continued to investigate and allowed almost eight hours to elapse before applying for a search warrant.
Once the officers had a warrant in hand, they searched Elmore’s home and discovered two firearms in his bedroom. Elmore entered a conditional guilty plea to being a felon in possession of a firearm and appealed the denial of his motion to suppress.
Because the eight-hour seizure of Elmore’s home was unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment and because the exclusionary rule requires suppression of the firearms, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed and remanded for further proceedings.
In January 2017, Nathan Gribowski suffered a back injury from an automobile collision with an underinsured motorist. Following a dissatisfactory UIM coverage settlement from his liability carrier, State Farm, Gribowski filed an action asserting breach of contract and bad faith.
Prior to a jury trial, Gribowski moved to prevent State Farm from producing evidence that he declined certain treatment. Specifically, State Farm sought to impeach the severity of Gribowski’s pain by highlighting his refusal of radio frequency ablation and diagnostic tactics associated with it.
Gribowski argued presenting such evidence was tantamount to advancing a failure-to-mitigate defense, which State Farm didn’t raise and the law didn’t support. The district court denied the motion, determining the evidence was relevant for non-mitigation purposes.
The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals perceived no abuse of discretion in the district court’s evaluation of relevancy and affirmed.
C.D.I. appealed the district court’s decision upholding the denial by the Commissioner of Social Security of his application for disability insurance benefits and supplemental security income.
C.D.I. filed his application in February 2019. He claimed disability based on cirrhosis of the liver, kidney failure, hearing and vision loss, depression, chronic fatigue and back pain. His application was ultimately denied by an administrative law judge in November 2021. The Appeals Council denied C.D.I.’s request for review.
C.D.I. petitioned for review in the district court, arguing the ALJ improperly discounted C.D.I’s chronic fatigue and should have applied the treating physician rule. The district court rejected those arguments and affirmed.
The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals found the failure to consider all of the claimant’s medically determinable impairments, singly and in combination, is typically reversible error. But because the ALJ found other severe impairments, the error was harmless.
But the 10th Circuit also found the ALJ’s step five analysis was problematic. It held the ALJ’s residual functional capacity determination at step five wasn’t based on “all of the relevant medical and other evidence.”
The 10th Circuit remanded to the ALJ. On remand, the ALJ should evaluate the medical opinions, based on their persuasiveness, as directed by the regulations adopted in 2017.