Yesterday, I appeared at a disability hearing with a client who had gone back to work for a year during the four year wait for her hearing.  Now she is again out of work.  The complications are increased because her insurability for Title II disability ran out in December, 2004.

She applied in March, 2003, alleging an onset date in March, 2003 based on a badly broken foot and diabetes complications.  She was out of work until November, 2004 when she went back to work “to feed her kids.”  She worked on a mostly regular basis through November, 2005, when she broke her other foot.  She has been out of work ever since.

Here are the issues:

1) if the judge decides that she was “disabled” for Social Security purposes during both periods (March, 2003 thru November, 2004 and November, 2005 ongoing), how does he write a decision and what does he do about the year that she did work?

Does he approve the claimant for a closed period of Title II disability from 3/03-11/04 and then issue a separate ruling approving SSI from 11/05 ongoing?
2) is it fair to hold the claimant’s 11/04-11/05 year of work against her?  Fear of living in a shelter with your kids can motivate almost anyone to suffer thru a lot of agony.

If any of my colleagues who practice Social Security law have any thoughts, please share your input.

[tags] working while applying for Social Security disability, SSDI, trial work, unsuccessful work attempt [/tags]