Thousands of cases. A few that are worth singling out.

Case highlights

From federal precedent to a client’s trophy.

We have handled thousands and thousands of cases. We have a few cases that we are especially proud of:

1. We’d like to introduce the Foote case (Foote v. Chater, 67 F.3d 1553 (11th Cir. 1995)). In the Foote case a claimant’s subjective testimony supported by medical evidence that satisfies the pain standard is in itself sufficient to support a finding of disability. All Federal Judges in the 11th Circuit will permit a favorable decision when the pain is established by at least a treating source’s findings. *
2. In another case (Hogard v. Sullivan 733 F. Supp. 1465 (M.D. Fla. 1990)); our claimant was awarded 100% disability benefits from the Veterans Administration. In the Administrative Law Judge’s perfunctory rejection of the claimant’s 100% Veterans Administration disability rating, he erroneously found the two agencies use different criteria for evaluation claims. This was found not sufficient justification for not according great weight to the disability rating of the Veterans Administration. Based on this case, we now have a Social Security ruling that requires the Administrative Law Judge to consider Veterans Administration records in their decisions. *
3. We handled a claim that involved Fibromyalgia. The claimant was denied twice at hearings. We didn’t quit! The third time the Administrative Law Judge found that the claimant had a very severe case of pain, had severe Fibromyalgia problems as well as other serious impairments. He reopened the previous applications and she was given a nice retroactive payment. She presented us with a trophy which highlighted her appreciation of our refusal to give up on her case.

   

4. We are always proud of Appeals Council Reversals. We represented a claimant who was denied by an Administrative Law Judge, although the claimant wanted to quit, we insisted that we could win because the Judge had made several errors. The Appeals Council reversed the Administrative Law Judge’s decision and approved the claimants disability benefits. The claimant was delighted.

We must mention, that we continue our great pride on the abilities of each of our associates: Roberta D’Addario and Douglas Bissi, who have won thousands of cases in their many years of service and who have established friendship and great respect with our clients.

* Cases appealed to the Federal Court of Appeals are handled by attorney referral only.