Jones v. Celebrezze

• Decision Date: 05 May 1964
• Docket Number: No. 14433.,14433.
• Parties: Robert E. JONES, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Anthony J. CELEBREZZE, Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

331 F.2d 226 (1964)

Robert E. JONES, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Anthony J. CELEBREZZE, Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 14433.

United States Court of Appeals Seventh Circuit.

May 5, 1964.

John W. Douglas, Asst. Atty. Gen., Frederick B. Abramson, Atty., U. S. Dept. of Justice, Richard P. Stein, U. S. Atty., Sherman L. Cohn, Atty., Dept. of Justice, Washington, D. C., for appellant.

Nelson G. Grills, Indianapolis, Ind., for appellee.

Before HASTINGS, Chief Judge, and CASTLE and SWYGERT, Circuit Judges.

CASTLE, Circuit Judge.

Plaintiff-appellee, Robert E. Jones, brought this action in the District Court to review the decision of the Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare that plaintiff was not entitled to disability insurance benefits under the Social Security Act which, in so far as here pertinent, provides in § 216(i) (1) 42 U.S. C.A. § 416(i) (1) that:

"The term `disability\' means (A) inability to engage in any substantial gainful activity by reason of any medically determinable physical or mental impairment which can be expected to result in death or to be of long-continued and indefinite duration, * * *"

The District Court on its review of the administrative record concluded that plaintiff had established his inability to engage in his immediately previous occupation — that of a foundry worker doing hard manual labor — by reason of a medically determinable physical impairment which could be expected to be of long continued and indefinite duration, and that the Secretary had failed to show that other kinds of substantial gainful employment for which the plaintiff is suited are available to the plaintiff. The court entered judgment setting aside the Secretary's decision and remanding the case with directions to find the plaintiff "disabled" within the meaning of the Act, and to provide him with such disability insurance benefits as he would have been entitled to had his initial application been approved. The Secretary appealed.

Plaintiff's application for benefits, filed August 17, 1960, was denied by the Secretary on a finding that the plaintiff had not established he had impairments, either singly or in combination, of such severity as to preclude him from engaging in any substantial gainful activity. Under the provisions of § 205(g) of the Act (42 U.S.C.A. § 405(g)) the findings of the Secretary as to any fact, if supported by substantial evidence, are conclusive. Brunenkant v. Celebrezze, 7 Cir., 310 F.2d 355, 356. Neither the District Court nor this Court is at liberty to make its own appraisal of the evidence. We may review the record only to determine whether it contained substantial evidence to support the Secretary's decision. Degner v. Celebrezze, 7 Cir., 317 F.2d 819, 821; Rosewall v. Folsom, 7 Cir., 239 F.2d 724, 728.

The record discloses that at the time of the hearing before the Department's examiner plaintiff was 52 years of age, was 5'9" in height and weighed 160 pounds. He was ambulatory but walked with a slight limp. Although as a result of poliomyelitis suffered in early childhood plaintiff's left leg is about ¾" shorter and smaller than the right, with some atrophy of associated muscles, he played basketball and baseball as a young man. In his application plaintiff listed his...