Social Security Denial Example

By Matthew A. Quick The court in Schaaf v Astrue, held that a claimant could be denied disability benefits based on claimant's loss of partial use of one arm. The court opined that an administrative judge could properly find that claimant's injury was not severe enough to prevent him from performing light duty work. Further, the administrative judge was not required to give controlling weight to a treating physician's contrary opinion since said opinion was not supported by medically acceptable clinical and laboratory diagnostic techniques to document any of claimant's symptoms that would prevent him from working. Moreover, an administrative judge could discount claimant's contention that he suffered from extreme pain where medical records did not show that claimant made similar claim.