## Facts

- Thomas Eads, Jr. applied for Social Security disability benefits, alleging poorly controlled diabetes aggravated by extreme obesity.
- Eads testified that he could not work because he needed to elevate his legs for several hours during an eight-hour workday.
- Before the Administrative Law Judge (ALJ), the record contained no medical evidence supporting the claimed need to elevate his legs, and the ALJ found Eads’s testimony not credible.
- The ALJ denied benefits.
- After the ALJ decision, Eads sought Appeals Council review and, for the first time, submitted a treating physician’s letter stating Eads could not sit more than 30 minutes and had to be supine periodically to elevate his legs.
- The Appeals Council denied review, leaving the ALJ decision as the agency’s final decision.
- On judicial review, the district court affirmed and refused to consider the physician’s letter because it had not been presented to the ALJ.

## Issues

1. When the Appeals Council denies review after receiving new and material evidence, may a reviewing court consider that evidence as part of the record in evaluating the ALJ’s decision?
2. Was the ALJ’s denial of disability benefits supported by substantial evidence on the properly reviewable record?

## Decision

- The Seventh Circuit affirmed the district court.
- When the Appeals Council denies review, the decision subject to judicial review is the ALJ’s decision, and its correctness is evaluated based only on the evidence before the ALJ.
- The physician’s letter submitted only to the Appeals Council was not considered in substantial-evidence review of the ALJ’s decision.
- On the ALJ record, substantial evidence supported the denial of benefits.

## Legal Principles

- If the Appeals Council grants review and issues a merits decision, the reviewing court evaluates that Council decision on the expanded administrative record.
- If the Appeals Council denies review, the ALJ decision remains the final agency decision for judicial review, and the reviewing court evaluates it on the record that was before the ALJ.
- New evidence submitted only to the Appeals Council does not, by itself, become part of the record for substantial-evidence review when the Council declines review.
- A claimant seeking consideration of genuinely new and material evidence after the ALJ decision must pursue a remand mechanism under 42 U.S.C. § 405(g) rather than obtain direct judicial reweighing of the ALJ decision on a supplemented record.
- An ALJ does not err by failing to consider evidence that was not presented at the ALJ hearing.

## Conclusion

The Seventh Circuit held that, because the Appeals Council denied review, the court’s substantial-evidence review was limited to the evidence presented to the ALJ; excluding the late-submitted physician letter, the ALJ’s denial of disability benefits was supported by substantial evidence and was affirmed.


Eads v. Sec’y of Health & Hum. Servs., 983 F.2d 815 (7th Cir. 1993)