Court Opinion

ID: 9453028
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 18:00:00.102422+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:33:28.085360
License: Public Domain

EDWARDS, Circuit Judge
(concurring in part; dissenting in part).
I concur with much of Judge McAllister’s opinion in this case — particularly in reaffirmance of this court’s views as stated in Miracle v. Celebrezze, 351 F.2d 361 (C.A.6, 1965) and Massey v. Celebrezze, 345 F.2d 146 (C. A.6, 1965).
I find it necessary, however, to add a few comments. In Collins v. Gardner, 373 F.2d 727 (C.A.6, 1967), we reiterated this court’s support for the case referred to above. There we dealt with an ex-coal miner suffering from second degree silicosis and thus disabled from performing his previous lifetime occupation. But we held that where the record contained substantial evidence of a residual capacity for light work and availability of such work within the general area where the claimant lived, the United States District Judge had been correct in affirmance of denial of disability benefits.
In the instant case, however, the United States District Judge reversed the findings of the Hearing Examiner and granted disability benefits. The claimant in this case is again an ex-coal miner, 50 years old at the time of the filing of his application. He had worked for 26 years in the mines. He is extremely obese, weighing approximately 325 pounds, although only 5 feet 11 inches in height. He has a second grade education and no skills, other than those associated with coal mining. At the time of his application he lived (and lives) in Cary-ville, Tennessee, a distance of 38 miles from Knoxville and 10 to 15 miles from somewhat nearer industrial towns of Oak Ridge and LaFollette.
The last Hearing Examiner’s report made after an initial remand by the United States District Judge found that claimant was not disabled from performing his prior work, and on that basis proceeded to hold that there were many jobs available which he could do in the economy. He discussed these latter both in terms of a 15-mile radius and a radius of 40 miles, which would include Knox*766ville. He thereupon found that claimant was entitled to no disability benefits.
The Hearing Examiner first held that appellant’s heart and back complaints were not disabling. While this conclusion was certainly strongly disputed in this record, there was in my opinion medical evidence to support the Hearing Examiner’s findings in this respect.
The Hearing Examiner then concluded appellant was not disabled at all by deciding appellant’s extreme obesity was remediable. I find no evidence in this record to support this conclusion.
As the Hearing Examiner noted, “Claimant’s principal handicap for employment is his extreme obesity.” Obesity is cited as a medical problem in every medical report dealing with appellant’s condition. It is related in those medical reports to appellant’s heart, back and shoulder complaints.
Appellant’s extreme obesity is certainly on this record “a medically determinable physical or mental impairment.” See Barr, Obesity: Red Light of Health, in Overeating, Overweight and Obesity 90 (Nutrition Symposium Series No. 6, The National Vitamin Foundation, Inc., New York, N. Y., Jan.1953).
The Hearing Examiner treats appellant’s “extreme obesity” of 25 years duration as if it were a condition which he had willed on himself in order to defraud the Social Security Board. If the facts supported this conclusion, I would certainly agree that no one should be able fraudulently to eat his way onto the Social Security rolls. But such an objective would hardly have led this appellant to carry 325 pounds into 30-inch coal veins for 25 years of coal mining.
The critical finding of fact in this whole case, I believe, is the Hearing Examiner’s statement, “There is no showing that claimant could not control his weight by proper diet and medical care.” Actually, there is undisputed evidence of appellant’s living and working for a quarter of a century with his obesity to show exactly that. There are, of course, the repeated recommendations of doctors that appellant should go on a rigorous diet. But appellant testified without dispute that he had tried to diet and failed to lose weight.
Appellant’s condition is medically described as “exogenous,” which literally means that the doctors found no internal physical malfunction of the body which caused it. No one took the trouble to explore any emotional compulsion or “mental impairment” of appellant’s which might have caused this obesity. Nor does the record contain any evidence of exploration of appellant’s own claim that after a skull fracture in an auto accident in 1936, he was told that he would gain weight and there was nothing he could do to reduce. Yet both psychological factors and injuries to the hypothalamus are recognized causes of involuntary obesity.1
Much as I would regret further delay in this long protracted litigation, I would remand for testimony on the crucial question of whether or not appellant’s obesity is remediable.

. Gelvin and McGavack, Obesity: Its Cause, Classification and Cabe 42-47 (HoeborHarper, New York, N.Y.1957).