i am asking if i might be eligable due to back injury and hepatits c treatment i will be on chemotherapy for 1 year and am unable to work
–J.B.
Jonathan Ginsberg responds: J.B. thanks for your question. I chose your question because you raise two important issues:
Firstly, eligibility for disability is not really a function of your diagnosis. The correct question to ask – how severe is your condition and how does it impact your ability to work. There are basically three ways to win a Social Security disability case – you can meet a listing, you can show that your capacity for work has been reduced to less than competitive full time work, or you can meet a grid rule.
Success or failure in your case can depend on choosing the appropriate theory to proceed under. This is what disability lawyers do – we analyze the evidence and work with you to decide which argument for disability holds the most promise. Then we obtain evidence and tailor a presentation to support that theory.
Secondly, you make the point that you will be on chemotherapy for a year. Clearly the side effects of chemotherapy will impact your work capacity but you need more. Simply being a chemotherapy patient does not make you disabled. Instead I would want to know if the side effects that you experience are severe enough to interfere with your capacity for work, and, if so, for what time period.
Your case may be one in which there are several theories of disability: chemotherapy side effects, back pain and associated physical limitations, pain in general, weakness and a compromised immune system from the Hep C. Again, I would focus on the specific work limitations that arise from each of these conditions and I would develop a unified theory to argue that individually or in combination these conditions prevent you from performing any type of competitive work.