[NOT FOR PUBLICATION--NOT TO BE CITED AS PRECEDENT]

                                

                 United States Court of Appeals

                     For the First Circuit

                                

                                







No. 97-1554



                     JULIO A. PEREZ-ALVARADO,



                      Plaintiff, Appellant,



                                v.



        KENNETH S. APFEL, COMMISSIONER OF SOCIAL SECURITY,

                      Defendant, Appellee.

                                





          APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

                                

                FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO

                                

         [Hon. Hector M. Laffitte, U.S. District Judge]

                                





                             Before

                                

                    Boudin, Stahl and Lynch,

                        Circuit Judges.

                                

                                





     Juan F. Matos Bonet and Matos Bonet & Matos De Juan on brief

for appellant.

     Guillermo Gil, United States Attorney, Lilliam Mendoza-Torro,

Assistant United States Attorney, and Wayne G. Lewis, Assistant

Regional Counsel, Social Security Administration, on brief for

appellee.











June 23, 1998







            Per Curiam.  Claimant Julio Perez Alvarado appeals a

    district court judgment that upheld the denial of his 

    application for Social Security disability benefits.  Alleging

    that he suffers from bronchial asthma and back, left leg, and

    chest pain, claimant maintains that he has been continuously

    disabled since he fractured his left thigh bone in a 1976

  automobile accident.  

       After thoroughly reviewing the record and the

    parties' briefs on appeal, we conclude that the ALJ's decision

    is supported by substantial evidence and uninfected by error of

    law.  Contrary to claimant's contention on appeal, the ALJ was

    not required to credit the vocational expert's testimony that

    claimant could not work if he could not lift at all.  Dr.

    Bonilla's report did not say that claimant was wholly unable to

    lift.  To the contrary, the relatively benign findings recorded

    in this report and the other medical evidence supported the

    ALJ's conclusion that claimant retained the capacity to perform

    at least the sedentary jobs that the vocational expert

  described.    Accordingly, the judgment of the district court is

    affirmed.