George Piemonte, NOSSCR 11th Circuit Board Representative

No doubt we all have had an ALJ include in the hypothetical question “Assume the claimant can interact appropriately with supervisors occasionally.” Or some similar variation.

What’s wrong with this? According to SSR 83-10, occasional means up to 1/3 of the day. What about the rest of the day? “Can occasionally” implicitly means “cannot usually” or “cannot for 2/3” of the day. As I previously discussed, common sense needs to be brought into the hearing room. Common sense dictates that in the real world, a worker must respond appropriately to supervisors 100% of the time.

So, how do you deal with this in a hearing? Here is a list of some questions to ask the VE:

• All jobs require some supervision (and training), don’t they?
• All new workers must be told by a supervisor what to do, right?
• All new workers must be corrected when they do the job incorrectly, right?
• Most <insert job(s) identified by VE> are not allowed to respond inappropriately to supervisors 2/3 of the time, are they? Why not?
• Workers would be fired if they responded to supervisor corrections by running out of the room and crying, wouldn’t they? Argued about the correction? Told the supervisor, “I can’t deal with you/this right now”?

If the ALJ says “only superficial contact with supervisors,” ask the following:

• All jobs require some supervision (and training), don’t they?
• All new workers must be told by a supervisor what to do, right?
• It is not superficial to explain exactly what must be done, is it?
• All new workers must be corrected when they do the job incorrectly, right?
• It is not superficial to correct the worker when they do the job wrong, is it?

These questions show that a claimant limited to occasional supervisor interaction is disabled.

This is a guest column. The views expressed in this column are the views of the author alone, and do not represent the views of NOSSCR, NOSSCR’s leadership, or NOSSCR’s staff.