Court Opinion

ID: 9479023
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 07:06:06.14685+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:46:46.773135
License: Public Domain

DAVID A. NELSON, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I agree that the district court erred in affirming the decision of the Secretary. The AU found that “the claimant primarily suffers from a mental disorder that slowly progressed in intensity during the years after 1979.” The AU further found that the claimant was disabled on November 13, 1985, the date of the psychiatric examination by Dr. Lurie. Although I do not believe that the AU was required to accept the claimant’s subjective complaints at face value, or to accept at face value the conclusions of Dr. George, who in 1982 made a diagnosis of “schizoid personality” on the basis of a single interview, without having the benefit of an accurate history and without any psychological testing, I can find no evidentiary support for the AU’s conclusion that the claimant’s disability did not arise until the very eve of Dr. Lurie’s examination in November of 1985.
Social Security Rule 83-20 declares it “essential” that the onset date of disability “be correctly established and supported by the evidence....” Where, as would seem to be the case here, it is possible to infer that the onset of the disability occurred at some point prior to the date of the first recorded medical examination establishing disability, SSR 83-20 says that the onset date “must be fixed based on the facts.... ” A finding that the claimant’s progressive mental disorder became disabling on November 13, 1985, cannot rationally be based on the fact that Dr. Lurie happened to conduct his examination on that date.
SSR 83-20, as I read it, makes it clear that in a case such as this the AU is not to determine the onset date without having called on the services of a medical advisor: “At the hearing, the administrative law judge ... should call on the services of a medical advisor when onset must be inferred.” That was not done here, and I fully agree with the conclusion that this case must be sent back so that the informed judgment of a medical advisor can be obtained.
I have no way of predicting what the medical advisor will say, and it remains to *1125be determined whether the onset of disability did or did not occur before June 30, 1985, the date on which the claimant last met the insured status requirements. Nothing said here, I take it, should be taken as intimating how we think the question ought ultimately to be decided.