Court Opinion

ID: 9466508
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 01:18:09.812637+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:39:46.726888
License: Public Domain

HAYNSWORTH, Chief Judge,
dissenting:
I would affirm.
The statement that Dr. Hamilton has a “penchant for making elaborate diagnoses based upon opaque x-ray films” is unsupported on this record. It may be that the administrative law judge had encountered this elderly physician before. However, it is a shorthand means of stating why Dr. Hamilton’s opinion is disregarded when derived from a film which highly qualified readers find so opaque as to be uninformative. Nor do I find Dr. Hresan’s references to the heart and spine as showing reliance upon anything other than the x-ray film in reaching his conclusion about the patient’s respiratory problem.
Since I find in the record support for the Secretary’s conclusion, I would affirm.