Opinion ID: 994882
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Objective findings found by the examiner.

Text: 4. The examiner's diagnosis of the condition(s) which disable (or are claimed to disable) the patient. 5. What are the patient's specific physical or psychiatric limitation(s)? Please be sure to itemize all limitations. 4 6. What is the expected duration of these limitations? 7. Do you agree with the patient's present course of treatment? What, if any, other treatment would you recommend and what would you expect to be the result of such treatment? 8. Please limit your discussions to the medical limitations, not vocational limitations of the claimant. Dr. Smoller interviewed Edmonds on March 16, 1995. According to Edmonds, the interview lasted no more than forty-five minutes. In a report dated March 16, 1995, but not stamped received by Hartford until April 3, 1995, Dr. Smoller concluded: (1). Ms. Edmonds does suffer from some psychiatric symptoms of dysthymia, that is: a rather low-grade depression and dissatisfaction with life, symptoms of anxiety that have persisted throughout her life, a tendency to physicalize or somatize her stress (to present physical symptoms which are related to the stress). These are lifelong problems, unrelated in the main to any outside activity although she is probably hypersensitive to criticism. (2). These problems are unrelated to work activities. The stressors she describes at work seem not to be unduly discriminatory or unreasonable for a supervisory relationship. This patient seems to have taken a great deal of time off of work and it would be reasonable for the supervisor to question such. (3). Although this patient does have longstanding psychiatric problems, they are personality-based, have existed by the patient's own admission and by history, since childhood or early adolescence and are not related to current work-related activities. 5 (4). This patient is not disabled by these conditions. Although she probably is in need of psychiatric treatment and medications, there is no clear indication of an inability to work. The problems she describes are in the administrative realm, not the medical, and should be resolved in that arena. On a psychiatric basis, Ms. Edmonds is not disabled from work and while it is commendable that she is seeking treatment, her symptoms do not prevent her from productive functioning. The patient has no specific physical or psychiatric limitations at the current time. It may be in everyone's best interest to transfer her to a different position at Hughes if this is possible but my suspicion is that she will find some problem with her next supervisor based on the hypersensitivity that she evidences in her personality. 5 Patient's present course of treatment is not unreasonable although it has gone on for seven years without terribly much change. Ms. Edmonds, however, has no medical or psychiatric limitations which would prevent her from functioning adequately in the positions for which she is trained.6 Lathe spoke to Edmonds by telephone on the day this report was received by Hartford. She told Edmonds that she would be recommending that the claim be denied based on Dr. Smoller's report. Lathe's supervisor agreed, and written denial of the claim was mailed to Edmonds on April 5. Simultaneously, Hartford sent a copy of Dr. Smoller's report to Dr. Gorman for his comments. Edmonds prepared an eight-page, handwritten response to Dr. Smoller's report. Among other things, she asserted that (i) Dr. Smoller had erroneously posited that the severity of her symptoms had not changed through her lifetime, (ii) his opinion that she would find some problem with her next supervisor was belied by her positive _________________________________________________________________ 6 The differences in this paragraph's format are discussed in Section III below. 6 relationship with the majority of her twenty-one prior supervisors at Hughes, and (iii) he had mentioned to her that he would provide his findings to her lawyer, though she was not represented by counsel at the time.7 But soon she was. On June 14, 1995, her lawyer formally appealed the denial of LTD benefits, and, on July 6, 1995, he forwarded a report by Edmonds' therapist Catherine Thomsen. Ms. Thomsen recounted what she had observed during seven years of treating Edmonds and the incidents that led up to Edmonds leaving work. Thomsen continued: As time went on in 1993 and 1994, Mrs. Edmonds became increasingly despondent as the tension with her boss magnified in scope. She began to experience serious sleep disturbances, sometimes not sleeping for days at a time. When she did sleep, her sleep was fitful and marked by frequent nightmares involving her stressful situation at work. I observed her becoming increasingly agitated and tearful, sometimes shaking uncontrollably.