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Hi there. This is Jonathan Ginsberg. I'm a Social Security attorney here in
Atlanta, Georgia. I want to talk to you today about something called the "grid rules" - otherwise
known as the "Medical-Vocational Guidelines."
I've talked about this little bit before, but I wanted
just to reiterate importance of always looking at the grid rules and telling
your attorney to look at them. You never know when they may apply.
Specifically if you are over the age of 50 and you have some sort of
a physical limitation, the grid rules may apply. Obviously when you look at
the grid rules, they're going to really apply more to people who have
unskilled work background or no transferrable skills, or someone who's got
very limited education. But it's always worth taking a look at them. If you
are over the age of 50, big picture, you want to tell your attorney, "take
a look at the Grid Rules- Medical Vocational Guidelines, and see if I
qualify."
Basically the Grid Rules, what they're designed to do, it's a
reflection of the fact that people who are over age of 50 are going to have a more
difficult time finding work in a competitive economy. Really, what it says
is even if you have the capacity to do certain types of physical work,
you're still "disabled" because no job are out there for entry-level jobs
for persons who have limited skills and limited education.
It's interesting to see that sometimes judges aren't even aware of this. I
have an example: I had a case just the other day where my client is age 61,
he has 11th Grade education, and his past work was more than 15 years ago. Within 15
years, he only had one job and that was for about 3 or 4
months. He had $1000 of earnings 14 years ago. In effect, that means he had
no work; that's really what that means. I was preparing my case, I was
looking at and thinking, "this guy meets the grid at medium," which meant that he was disabled,
even if he can do medium-level work.
Medium work is standing and walking 6 out of 8 hours in a
day and lifting 25 pounds frequently, 50 pounds occasionally. That's
pretty heavy-duty work. If you could do that, you could still be found disabled,
and in fact, I think he met that.
I'm giving my opening statement, and the judge interrupted me said, "nobody
gets . . . nobody qualifies at medium." I said, "You honor, with all due
respect, take a look at the grid rules." So he stopped and did. He said, "I stand
corrected. You're right. There are a couple situations where somebody can
be qualified medium where even if they can do medium work, they're still
disabled."
We went through, and sure enough, that was what the judge is
going to decide this case on. Even the judge who's normally very prepared,
a bright guy, didn't know that there are two instances under medium where a
person who can do medium work can still be found disabled under certain
circumstances. This is the only case I've ever had like this; this judge
said this is the only case he's ever seen like it, but it can happen.
Always take a look at those grid rules; always have your lawyer take a look
at them.
If you want to see them, I've got a website I put together called
GridRules.net. You can look at the different grid rules and see if you
qualify. It's a very shortcut way to get approval, it's one of the three
theories disability you can use; the other two being functional capacity
and meeting a listing. If can qualify under the Grid Rules, a lot
faster way to go, and can make life lot easier and
lot more . . . a lot quicker for you and for your attorney.
Anyway, I hope this has been helpful. I hope that my experiences will be
helpful for you. Any questions you've got, let me know. Contact by email or
comment on this; more than happy to try to help you any way I can.
Again, my name is Jonathan Ginsberg. I'll talk to
you soon.
