32 | March/April 2023 | BAEC Bulletin
Persistance Pays Off for Claimants in Six-Year Battle to Get SSDI By Christopher J. Grover
Representing Social Security Disability (SSD) claimants sometimes feels like you and your clients have been condemned to the same punishment as Sisyphus — roll a rock uphill, it rolls back down, repeat. More than six years ago, I was retained by two individuals who applied for SSD benefits within months of each other. Neither of these clients could ever return to work, but both were forced to take
testimony from two separate medical experts whose consensus was the same: my client was too ill to work. Both of these individuals and their families struggled medically, financially, and mentally for over six years, yet both kept faith in a system that had promised to pay them if they became disabled. Both met the employment criteria of the SSA, having worked and paid into the Social Security system. The problem — in spite of the abundance of medical records presented in each case — lay in getting before a judge who would look at those records and award a favorable decision. I see many strong cases rejected for a variety of reasons. As frustrating as these journeys were for all involved, the important factors were that my clients knew they couldn’t go back to work, and they had no choice but to put their trust in the system they paid into to cover themselves for this exact purpose. Ultimately, they knew we believed in them and kept faith we wouldn’t stop pushing the rock back up the hill. Christopher J. Grover is a claimant representative at Jeffrey Freedman Attorneys. He is also past chair of the Disability Committee of the Bar Association of Erie County.
the long road to secure benefits. It took six years, a combined seven hearings in front of seven judges, and five appeals (two to Federal Court), until these two clients were awarded SSD benefits — within days of one another. These cases (taking 2,361 days and 2,303 days, respectively) far exceeded the average processing time of 450 days. Although there were very few similarities between the cases, they had similar trajectories, and both stories shed a light on the difficulties the majority of claimants face when applying for SSD benefits The first client was a former U.S. Army combat medic who enlisted in the wake of 9/11 and served his country for more than eight years. He had a 100 percent disability rating from the Veterans Administration (VA) when we filed his SSD claim. His diagnoses included post-traumatic stress, traumatic brain injury, orthopedic impairments, a heart condition, fibromyalgia, and connective tissue disorder. The VA provided him with an electric scooter, and his wife received a stipend as his formal caretaker. His SSDI claim, however, was denied by three separate judges who had access to his entire VA medical file. After several years and multiple appeals to Social Security’s Appeals Council, the United States District Court (USDC) remanded the case for a fourth (and final) hearing. At that point, his medical record consisted of more than 2,000 pages. The Judge assigned a Medical Expert to the case who reviewed the entire record and testified the client clearly met the requirements for SSD. After years of fighting, my client was able to get the benefits that he deserved. The second client suffered from chronic pancreatitis, anxiety, depression, and PTSD. He was hospitalized after experiencing anoxic brain damage, when he was subjected to a medically induced coma for three weeks. He has ongoing memory issues, cognitive impairments, and severe abdominal pain. His case was denied, appealed, and remanded three separate times. His doctors provided medical evidence and opinions that he was unable to work. The Judge assigned to his final hearing took
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