Social Security Benefits

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Civil

7^th Circuit Court of Appeals

Officials: POSNER, KANNE, and HAMILTON, Circuit Judges

Social Security Benefits

No. 15-1727 Kyle Alaura v. Carolyn Colvin

Denial of appellant application for benefits reversed due to Administrative law judge’s incomprehensive analysis and reliance on questionable statistics.

“Asked at argument where the job figures we just quoted from the administrative law judge’s opinion came from, the Social Security Administration’s lawyer said she had no idea and added that the agency’s lawyers are forbidden to speak to vocational experts—which we find hard to believe, and which if true makes no sense at all. The administrative law judge said she’d “determined that the vocational expert’s testimony is consistent with the information contained in the Dictionary of Occupational Titles” (U.S. Department of Labor, Dictionary of Occupational Titles (4th ed. 1991)), but she was wrong, because the DOT doesn’t contain statistics. Anyway the DOT has been superseded by the O*NET (Occupational Information Network)—a fact ignored by the Social Security Administration’s vocational experts and administrative law judges.”

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Attorney Derek A. Hawkins is the managing partner at Hawkins Law Offices LLC, where he heads up the firm’s startup law practice. He specializes in business formation, corporate governance, intellectual property protection, private equity and venture capital funding and mergers & acquisitions. Check out the website at www.hawkins-lawoffices.com or contact them at 262-737-8825.