ORDER

KENDALL J. NEWMAN, Magistrate Judge.

Plaintiff Darrell Sanders seeks judicial review of a final decision by the Commissioner of Social Security ("Commissioner") denying plaintiff's claim for Supplemental Security Income ("SSI") under Title XVI of the Social Security Act ("Act").1 Plaintiff filed a motion for summary judgment, which the Commissioner opposed by filing a cross-motion for summary judgment. (ECF Nos. 15, 20.) Plaintiff also filed a reply brief. (ECF No. 21.) For the reasons discussed below, the court GRANTS IN PART plaintiff's motion for summary judgment, DENIES the Commissioner's cross-motion for summary judgment, and REMANDS the action for further administrative proceedings.

The court reviews the Commissioner's decision to determine whether (1) it is based on proper legal standards pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 405(g), and (2) substantial evidence in the record as a whole supports it. Tackett v. Apfel, 180 F.3d 1094, 1097 (9th Cir. 1999). Substantial evidence is more than a mere scintilla, but less than a preponderance. Connett v. Barnhart, 340 F.3d 871, 873 (9th Cir. 2003) (citation omitted). It means "such relevant evidence as a reasonable mind might accept as adequate to support a conclusion." Orn v. Astrue, 495 F.3d 625, 630 (9th Cir. 2007), quoting Burch v. Barnhart, 400 F.3d 676, 679 (9th Cir. 2005). "The ALJ is responsible for determining credibility, resolving conflicts in medical testimony, and resolving ambiguities." Edlund v. Massanari, 253 F.3d 1152, 1156 (9th Cir. 2001) (citation omitted). "The court will uphold the ALJ's conclusion when the evidence is susceptible to more than one rational interpretation." Tommasetti v. Astrue, 533 F.3d 1035, 1038 (9th Cir. 2008).

In this case, plaintiff does not challenge the ALJ's evaluation of the medical evidence, assessment of plaintiff's credibility, or formulation of plaintiff's residual functional capacity ("RFC").2 Instead, plaintiff contends that the ALJ failed to discharge his burden at step five of the sequential disability analysis3 to show that plaintiff could perform other work in the national economy, because the ALJ's RFC assessment plausibly suggests that plaintiff is incapable of performing substantial gainful activity. That argument has merit.

The ALJ specifically found that plaintiff "should avoid competitive work environments. He requires a low stress, non-competitive work environment." (AT 19.) As the Commissioner concedes, "competitive" is a term of art in the agency's regulations and rulings, which distinguish competitive work from work performed in structured or sheltered settings. See Social Security Ruling ("SSR") 96-8p, at *6 (setting forth "[w]ork-related mental activities generally required by competitive, remunerative work"); 20 C.F.R. § 416.973 (work done under special conditions may not constitute substantial gainful activity). On appeal, the Commissioner urges the court to construe the term "competitive" as used here by the ALJ to simply mean high stress, high production work. However, such a reinterpretation of the ALJ's decision by this court on appeal is inappropriate for several reasons. First, because the term "competitive" is a term of art in the agency's own regulations and rulings, the court generally presumes that an ALJ uses that term with the administrative definition in mind. Second, reading the term "competitive" as used by the ALJ to simply mean high stress, high production work would appear to render the ALJ's other limitation to low stress work to be unnecessary surplusage. Third, and most troublingly, the vocational expert at the hearing essentially alerted the ALJ to the problem with a limitation to non-competitive work, as used in the regulatory sense, by emphasizing that every job in the open economy has production expectations, and then proceeded to provide representative examples of low stress work. (AT 46-47.) Nevertheless, the ALJ still elected to include a limitation to non-competitive work in the subsequent written decision.

To be sure, the Commissioner's counsel may be right that the ALJ did not subjectively intend to use the term "competitive" in the traditional sense. For that reason, the court declines to remand the action for payment of benefits, as plaintiff requests. However, given the ALJ's choice of that regulatory term of art, the court cannot now gloss over that finding as mere sloppy drafting or harmless error. See Magnuson v. Berryhill, 2017 WL 4959527, at *4 (E.D. Cal. Nov. 1, 2017) (remanding for further administrative proceedings in part to clarify limitation to non-competitive work).

Therefore, the action is remanded for the limited purpose of clarifying the ALJ's assessment of plaintiff's RFC. If necessary, the ALJ shall also obtain supplemental vocational expert testimony. Importantly, this order does not otherwise mandate a supplemental hearing or further proceedings, although the ALJ remains free, in his or her discretion, to further develop the record as deemed appropriate.

Accordingly, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that: