What is the current state of the law on the authority of a treating physician's opinion?

Generally, "the opinion of the treating physician is not afforded controlling weight where ... the treating physician issued opinions that are not consistent with ... the opinions of other medical experts," Halloran, 362 F.3d at 32, for "[g]enuine conflicts in the medical evidence are for the Commissioner to resolve," Veino v. Barnhart, 312 F.3d 578, 588 (2d Cir.2002). However, not all expert opinions rise to the level of evidence that is sufficiently substantial to undermine the opinion of the treating physician. For example, we have found an expert's opinion "not substantial," i.e., "[]not reasonably" capable of "support[ing] the conclusion that [the claimant] c[ould] work" where the expert addressed only "deficits" of which the claimant was "not complaining," Green-Younger, 335 F.3d at 107-08, or where the expert was a consulting physician who did not examine the claimant and relied entirely on an evaluation by a non-physician reporting inconsistent results, see id., or where the expert described the claimant's impairments only as "[l]ifting and carrying moderate[,] standing and

[537 F.3d 129]

walking, pushing and pulling and sitting mild," giving an opinion couched in terms "so vague as to render it useless in evaluating" the claimant's residual functional capacity, Curry v. Apfel, 209 F.3d 117, 123 (2d Cir.2000).