[Download] "Carradine V. Barnhart" by In the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit ~ eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Carradine V. Barnhart
- Author : In the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
- Release Date : January 12, 2004
- Genre: Law,Books,Professional & Technical,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 94 KB
Description
Applicants for social security benefits who claim to be disabled from working because of extreme pain make the job of a social security administrative law judge a difficult one. Medical science confirms that pain can be severe and disabling even in the absence of "objective" medical findings, that is, test results that demonstrate a physical condition that normally causes pain of the severity claimed by the applicant. E.g., Dennis C. Turk & Akiko Okifuji, "Assessment of Patients' Reporting of Pain: An Integrated Perspective," 353 Lancet 1784 (1999); Paula M. Trief et al., "Functional v. Organic Pain: A Meaningful Distinction?" 43 J. Clinical Psych. 219 (1987). And so "once the claimant produces medical evidence of an underlying impairment, the Commissioner may not discredit the claimant's testimony as to subjective symptoms merely because they are unsupported by objective evidence." Lester v. Chater, 81 F.3d 821, 834 (9th Cir. 1996). "A claimant's subjective testimony supported by medical evidence that satisfies the pain standard is itself sufficient to support a finding of disability. Indeed, in certain situations, pain alone can be disabling, even when its existence is unsupported by objective evidence." Foote v. Chater, 67 F.3d 1553, 1561 (11th Cir. 1995) (per curiam) (citations omitted). "Pain, fatigue, and other subjective, nonverifiable complaints are in some cases the only symptoms of a serious medical condition. To insist in such a case, as the social security disability law does not... that the subjective complaint, even if believed by the trier of fact, is insufficient to warrant an award of benefits would place a whole class of disabled people outside the protection of that law." Cooper v. Casey, 97 F.3d 914, 917 (7th Cir. 1996) (citations omitted); see 20 C.F.R. § 404.1529(b)(2).