00-1134 Lee v. City of Salem

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“[T]he unavoidable implication of his testimony is that what he told the Social Security Administration and the ALJ was untrue. Yet, the notion that he was no longer able to work as a sexton was obviously crucial to the ALJ’s disability determination. Having secured an award of disability benefits on the strength of that assertion, Lee has turned about and asked a jury, and now this court, to grant him relief based on a wholly contrary view of his ability to work. We reiterate that Lee does not account for his previous statements by explaining, for example, that the SSA does not consider the possibility of reasonable accommodations, so that when he claimed he was unable to return to his job with the city, he was simply saying that he could no longer do that job unless the city accommodated him, which it refused to do. Lee has not attempted to qualify his prior statements at all. Instead, he accepts the natural import of those statements (that he could no longer work as a sexton, period), contends that he so believed at the time he applied for benefits, and indicates that he has since had a change of heart. His brief makes the point succinctly: ‘Lee was able to do the job, did the job, knew he could do the job, was told he couldn’t do the job, filed for social security, and at the time of trial, told the jury he could do the job.'”

Reversed and remanded.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Indiana, Dillin, J., Rovner.