Case Law Update: Potter v. Commissioner - Court Reverses Disability Denial After ALJ Said No IQ Testing Was in the Record

What happened

On September 23, 2026, a United States magistrate judge in the Middle District of Florida reversed the Commissioner of Social Security and sent a disability claim back to the agency in Kenneth Potter v. Frank Bisignano, Commissioner of Social Security, No. 8:25-cv-1647-JRK (Tampa Division). The Opinion and Order holds that the administrative law judge rejected a psychologist’s opinion as unpersuasive after stating that “[t]here are no intelligence test results in evidence” — when the same psychologist’s report in the file contained a full Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, Fourth Edition, with a full-scale IQ of 74. Judgment was entered on the docket two days later, on September 25, 2026. A sentence-four remand under 42 U.S.C. § 405(g) is not an award of benefits; the claim returns to the agency for a second look.

How the claim reached federal court

The claimant protectively filed on August 12, 2022 for child disability insurance benefits and supplemental security income, alleging an onset date of March 11, 2018 in both applications. Those benefits are paid on the earnings record of an insured person — typically a parent — to a claimant who is 18 or older and has a disability that began before age 22. 20 C.F.R. § 404.350(a)(5). He alleged he could not work because of an auditory processing disorder, ADHD, an unspecified learning disorder, bipolar disorder, and depression.

The agency denied both applications initially and on reconsideration. An ALJ held a videoconference hearing on June 7, 2024, with the claimant represented by counsel and a vocational expert testifying, and on July 26, 2024 found him not disabled. The Appeals Council denied review on May 14, 2025, making that the Commissioner’s final decision, and he filed his federal complaint on June 25, 2025 under 42 U.S.C. §§ 405(g) and 1383(c)(3). The parties consented to have a magistrate judge decide the appeal.

He raised two issues: that the residual functional capacity did not account for marked limitations in understanding, remembering, and applying information, and that the ALJ mishandled the opinion of Gregory Fabiano, Ph.D., the psychological consultative examiner.

Why the court sent it back

Because the applications were filed after March 27, 2017, the ALJ was working under the revised medical-evidence rules. An ALJ need not give any specific evidentiary weight to any medical opinion, 20 C.F.R. §§ 404.1520c(a), 416.920c(a) — rules the Eleventh Circuit has held “abrogate[] [its] prior precedents applying the treating-physician rule.” Harner v. Soc. Sec. Admin., Comm’r, 38 F.4th 892, 896 (11th Cir. 2022). Instead, “[s]upportability and consistency are the most important factors, and the ALJ must explain how these factors were considered.” 20 C.F.R. §§ 404.1520c(b)(2), 416.920c(b)(2).

Dr. Fabiano examined the claimant on May 5, 2018 and issued two reports the same day, a Psychiatric Evaluation and an Intelligence Evaluation. He found moderate limitations in understanding simple directions and marked limitations in understanding complex directions and in using reason and judgment to make work-related decisions. The results, he wrote, “appear to be consistent with cognitive problems and this may significantly interfere with [the claimant’s] ability to function on a daily basis.”

The ALJ called the opinion unpersuasive for three stated reasons: Dr. Fabiano examined the claimant once, so he “did not have a good longitudinal view”; the opinion was “more than 6 years old”; and the limitations were “inconsistent with the psychiatric record, which showed no persistent subjective complaints or abnormal clinical findings.” Earlier in the same decision the ALJ had written: “There are no intelligence test results in evidence.”

That last statement is what undid the analysis. The court found the ALJ “overlooked that Dr. Fabiano performed intelligence testing and summarized the results.” Dr. Fabiano had administered the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, Fourth Edition, and the court found that “[t]he results of the testing support Dr. Fabiano’s opinion regarding Plaintiff’s functioning”: a seventh percentile rank in verbal comprehension, a tenth percentile rank in perceptual reasoning, a first percentile rank on the working memory index scale, a twenty-three percentile rank in processing speed, and a full-scale IQ of 74 at the fourth percentile rank. As the court put it: “Because the ALJ’s analysis of Dr. Fabiano’s opinion is based on a fundamental misunderstanding that no testing results are in the record, . . . the ALJ’s analysis cannot stand.”

A second problem: the finding that the limitations were inconsistent with the psychiatric record came “without explanation,” leaving the court “unable to determine” whether that was so. Because reconsidering the opinion may change the rest of the analysis, the court did not reach the residual-functional-capacity argument. See Jackson v. Bowen, 801 F.2d 1291, 1294 n.2 (11th Cir. 1986) (per curiam). The remand directs the agency to reevaluate the opinion and address the other argument if necessary.

What this means if you have a disability claim involving psychological testing

This is one district court order on one record and does not decide anyone else’s claim. Still, a few points are worth knowing.

A consultative examination is often more than the narrative at the front of the report. Testing data can sit in a companion report, as it did here, and a decision treating the narrative as the whole exhibit can miss the evidence supporting it. If a denial says testing is absent, check the exhibit page by page against what was actually filed.

A misreading of the record is also different from a disagreement about the evidence. Federal courts do not reweigh evidence on review, but the reasons an ALJ gives have to be traceable to what the file contains, and here the persuasiveness finding rested on a premise the record contradicted.

The age of an opinion and the one-time nature of an exam are factors an ALJ can weigh, not automatic disqualifiers — particularly in a child-disability-benefits case, where the question is whether disability began before age 22 and an older evaluation may be the evidence closest to the relevant period.

If your Social Security disability claim has been denied, our Social Security disability guide explains how the appeals process works, and you can request a free case evaluation. More rulings are on our case law updates page.

Case cited: Potter v. Commissioner of Social Security, No. 8:25-cv-1647-JRK (M.D. Fla.), Doc. 17, dated Sept. 23, 2026; judgment entered Sept. 25, 2026. Current as of September 26, 2026.