Because Social Security disability cases largely turn on a claimant’s capacity to work, SSA has come to recognize that a claimant’s “employability” ought to be a factor in determining eligibility for disability benefits.

In fact, the “grid rules” are specifically designed to help older, less educated individuals by easing the standards for certain claimants. The grid rules apply to claimants over age 50 who have a physical (not mental health) impairment.

The grids are actually tables that consider age, education and work experience. For example, a claimant who is age 50 to 55, who cannot read and write would be considered disabled even if the claimant could perform sit down work – the thought being that very few sit down jobs exist for such an individual.In general, claimants who are older and less educated will find it easier to qualify for disability even if they retain some capacity for work.

Even in cases where the grid rules do not apply, I have found that Social Security judges tend to be a bit more sympathetic to older, less educated claimants – especially those who have performed physical work during their working life. In theory a 48 year old construction worker might be found “not disabled” if he could perform data entry on a computer, but a thoughtful judge would recognize that such a scenario is unlikely in the real world.

Younger claimants – those in their 20’s and 30’s – generally have a more difficult time qualifying for disability. First, younger claimants may not “look disabled” to a judge and therefore not likely to receive the benefit of the doubt in a credibility evaluation. Secondly, some judges are concerned that by approving a younger individual for benefits, the Social Security system will be on the hook for hundreds of thousands of dollars over the next thirty or forty years, while the disabled individual will lose all incentive to work.

The one area where this generalized bias against younger individuals may not be quite so prevalent is in the cases of claimants disabled by mental illness. True mental illness – such as schizophrenia, severe depression, bi-polar disorder, paranoia, obsessive-compulsive disorder – exist because of brain chemistry imbalances. Age is not a factor. As such a claimant’s youth ususally does not work against him or her.

Earlier this week, I tried a case involving a 35 year old woman who was severely bi-polar and suffered with obsessive-compulsive disorder and anger control issues. My client was young, attractive and well dressed and a casual observer would have no idea about her inner turmoil.

I changed my normal direct examination strategy in this case because I was concerned that the judge (a visiting judge who I did not know) might pre-judge my client based on her appearance. Normally, I go through background material (past work, schooling, education) fairly quickly – often using “leading” questions since my goal is usually to inform the vocational witness about the work history and to get the background information into the record.

Here, I let my client ramble on a bit more about her past work since she had lost just about all of her past jobs because of confrontations with supervisors or customers.

Because of her mental illness, my client experiences a different reality than a non-impaired person. The more she spoke, the more obvious it became that she could not function in a work environment. Because her obsessive activities and paranoia are such a big part of her life, she tends to focus on those issues to the exclusion of other day to day matters. Her testimony suggested that she functioned best in a very controlled environment, even to the exclusion of her husband and other relatives.

I also asked her husband to testify since a mentally ill claimant often lacks the perspective to clearly explain exactly how her behavior differs from the norm. I usually try to find witnesses are in mental illness cases to illustrate the depth of the claimant’s day to day problems. I also asked the claimant to step outside when her husband spoke so that he could be free to speak his mind without having to worry about offending his wife.

At the end of the hearing the judge asked a few questions to the vocational witness, all of which resulted in vocational opinion testimony that this claimant could not function in a competitive work environment.

Fortunately, our judge looked at the evidence, not at the claimant’s appearance and he made the correct decision in this case.

[tags] mental illness and SSDI, grid rules, obsessive-compulsive disorder, paranoia, bi-polar disorder, Social Security disability, vising Social Security judge [/tags]