What the Eighth Circuit's Latest RFC Decision Means for Your Appeals Practice

The Eighth Circuit issued its decision in Bonham v. Bisignano on June 2, 2026, and if you handle Social Security disability appeals, it's worth reading carefully. Not just the majority. Especially the dissent.

Here's what happened, why the dissent matters, and what this means for how you handle cases going forward.

The Setup: A Long Wait and a Narrow Window

A veteran with serious cervical spine issues waited five years to file for SSA disability, alleging an onset date back in May 2012. By the time he applied, his insured status had already expired. That meant the relevant period, 2012 to 2016, was being assessed nearly a decade after the fact.

That timing problem turns out to be central to everything.

The Core Issue: One Opinion, One PA, One C&P Exam

Of the roughly 2,000 pages in the record, the only document that qualified as a "medical opinion" was a 2016 VA Compensation and Pension exam conducted by a physician assistant. That PA found 0/5 strength in the left arm, essentially no functional use of the limb.

Everything else in the file was clinical findings, imaging results, and strength testing. Objective medical data. Not functional opinions.

The ALJ found the PA's opinion unpersuasive, the strength findings across other exams ranged from 3/5 to 5/5, which the ALJ viewed as inconsistent, and then built the RFC for light work directly from that raw clinical evidence instead.

What the Majority Said

The majority affirmed. Under § 404.1545(a)(3), there's no categorical requirement that an RFC be supported by a functional medical opinion. Objective medical evidence, imaging, clinical exams, strength testing, can do the job on its own.

The court also read Noerper and Lauer narrowly: those cases address situations where there's no reliable evidence at all. Here, there was plenty of evidence; it just wasn't packaged as a functional opinion. That's not the same problem, and the majority treated it accordingly.

So the "no functional opinion required" door is open. But read Judge Kelly's dissent before you decide how wide.

Where Judge Kelly Pumps the Brakes

Judge Kelly's dissent isn't a disagreement about the legal standard. It's about what the record actually showed, and whether anyone ever translated it into functional capacity.

Her central observation: the strength ratings in the file weren't measuring the same things across visits. Sometimes they reflected the entire left side. Sometimes a specific muscle group, triceps, grip, shoulder abduction. The numbers ranged from 0/5 to 5/5, but nobody in the record bridged those raw measurements to what the claimant could actually lift, carry, push, or pull.

She also flagged something worth noting about gait: the ALJ used "normal gait" findings to support the conclusion that Bonham could sit and stand for six hours. But gait tells you about walking. It doesn't tell you much about the capacity to remain seated or upright for an extended period.

And there were two layers of institutional support for her concern: two state agency consultants had flagged "insufficient evidence" and "absence of functional data," and claimant's counsel had requested a medical expert twice. The ALJ took that request "under advisement" and never returned to it.

The majority treated that as essentially harmless. Judge Kelly would have remanded.

Four Takeaways for Your Practice

The "no functional opinion" door is open, but it's not unconditional. 

The majority's holding gives ALJs room to build RFCs from raw clinical data. But Judge Kelly's dissent is your roadmap for arguing that the gap between raw numbers and functional capacity is exactly the problem, especially when the state agency consultants themselves said the evidence was insufficient.

Timing is its own risk factor. 

The five-year delay here meant assessing 2012–2016 limitations in 2022 or later, with no contemporaneous functional opinion and a court that was openly skeptical about the reliability of any retrospective medical expert opinion at that point. If you have a client who has been sitting on a claim, Bonham is a useful conversation-starter about what that delay could cost them.

Push for a ruling on the ME request. 

Document the request clearly. If it goes unaddressed after the hearing, renew it on the record explicitly. Here, the ALJ's silence on it was treated as harmless by the majority. Don't let an unresolved request become background noise.

"Zone of choice" is still doing heavy lifting.

 Even with a dissent that methodically identifies real interpretive gaps in the strength data, the majority's deference standard carried the day. When you're

advising clients on appeal odds, this case is a good reminder of just how high that bar sits.

Got any questions? Schedule a consultation with us. I’m here to help. It’s a lot to take in, but we’ll get through it together. After all, navigating these waters is always easier when you’ve got someone to chat with.