Schmidt v. Sullivan

• Decision Date: 11 December 1990
• Docket Number: No. 89-3766,89-3766
• Citation: 914 F.2d 117
• Parties: , Unempl.Ins.Rep. CCH 15685A George W. SCHMIDT, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Louis W. SULLIVAN, Secretary of Health and Human Services, Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

Page 117

914 F.2d 117

31 Soc.Sec.Rep.Ser. 103, Unempl.Ins.Rep. CCH 15685A

George W. SCHMIDT, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Louis W. SULLIVAN, Secretary of Health and Human Services,

Defendant-Appellee.

No. 89-3766.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Argued July 12, 1990.

Decided Oct. 1, 1990.

Rehearing and Rehearing En Banc

Denied Dec. 11, 1990.

Frederick J. Daley, Dorie Budlow, Chicago, Ill., for plaintiff-appellant.

Michael C. Messer, Department of Health and Human Services, Region V, Office of the General Counsel, Chicago, Ill., for defendant-appellee.

Before CUDAHY and POSNER, Circuit Judges, and PELL, Senior Circuit Judge.

POSNER, Circuit Judge.

This is an appeal from the judgment of the district court refusing to disturb the denial of social security disability benefits to the plaintiff. The plaintiff, who is now 65 years old, suffers from coronary artery disease. (Because of his age, his entitlement to disability benefits, if any, is limited to the period between filing the application for benefits and reaching age 65, the social security retirement age. 42 U.S.C. Secs. 416(l), 423(a)(1)(B).) Schmidt had a mild heart attack in 1976. At the time he was a senior vice president of Montgomery Ward, supervising more than a hundred retail outlets and earning in excess of $125,000 a year. Wanting a less stressful job, he took early retirement from Montgomery Ward in 1981. Between 1982 and 1986 he first was president of a subsidiary of another retail enterprise and then operated his own consulting business. He stopped working in 1986 after being hospitalized for symptoms caused by his arterial problems. Although he continues to be physically active and even plays handball, he has mild angina pectoris which his doctor believes would become frequent and severe if he returned to a high-stress executive job.

The administrative law judge who ruled that the plaintiff is not disabled was persuaded that the plaintiff could return to the sorts of job he held before he stopped working in 1986. The fact that the plaintiff continues to play handball appears to have weighed heavily with the administrative law judge. It is indeed difficult for a lay person to understand how a person could suffer from disabling heart disease yet play handball for forty minutes every week. But judges, including administrative law judges of the Social Security Administration, must be careful not to succumb to the temptation to play doctor. Wilkins v. Sullivan, 889 F.2d 135, 140 (7th Cir.1989); Bauzo v. Bowen, 803 F.2d 917, 926 (7th Cir.1986); Smith v. Director, 843 F.2d 1053, 1058 (7th Cir.1988) (dissenting opinion); Williams v. Bowen, 664 F.Supp. 1200, 1208 n. 17, 1209 n. 18 (N.D. Ill.1987). The medical expertise of the Social Security Administration is reflected in regulations; it is not the birthright of the lawyers who apply them. Common sense can mislead; lay intuitions about medical phenomena are often wrong. Attacks of angina pectoris--the chest pains that are symptoms of coronary artery disease--can be brought on by psychological stress as well as by physical exertion, The Heart: Arteries and Veins 1174 (Hurst, et al., eds.1978), and people's sensitivity to different forms of strain differs. Id. Moreover, "angina pectoris provoked by emotional tension will sometimes last longer than angina pectoris provoked by effort because one cannot control emotions as easily as one can control physical activity." Id. at 1175. ...