Can my family and friends help with my Ohio Social Security disability claim?

At your hearing, your Ohio Social Security disability attorney may introduce testimony from lay witnesses (that is, witnesses who are not experts). Lay testimony can be extremely important in proving eligibility for Social Security disability. Your attorney may ask one of your friends or family members, or perhaps a neighbor or former work colleague, to testify. If we represent you at your Social Security disability hearing, we will consult with you in advance about which friend, relative, neighbor or colleague will make a good witness, and we will help them prepare for the hearing.

The importance of lay witness testimony in your Ohio Social Security disability hearing

The Social Security Administration and the courts recognize the importance of lay witness testimony. The regulations acknowledge that observations by non-medical sources may help the Social Security Administration understand how a medical impairment affects a claimant’s ability to work. Testimony and statements made by lay witnesses about a claimant’s restrictions, daily activities, efforts to work, and other issues, are included in the Social Security Administration’s definition of “evidence.”

Assessing residual functional capacity

The regulations and rulings require the Social Security Administration, in assessing residual functional capacity, to “consider descriptions and observations of your limitations from your impairment(s), including limitations that result from your symptoms, such as pain, provided by you, your family, neighbors, friends, or other persons.” The residual functional capacity assessment will be “based upon consideration of all relevant evidence in the case record, including medical evidence and relevant nonmedical evidence, such as observations of lay witnesses of an individual’s apparent symptomatology.”

Determining onset date of disability

In those situations where medical evidence is not available, your Ohio Social Security disability attorney can present testimony by family members, friends or former employers regarding the onset date of your disability.

Information about past relevant work

The regulations provide that your attorney can, with your permission, present testimony “from your employer or other person who knows about your work, such as a member of your family or a co-worker” regarding your past relevant work.

Evaluating mental impairment

In mental impairment cases, lay witnesses may be important in describing the claimant’s daily activities, social functioning, concentration, persistence or pace and ability to tolerate stress. Lay testimony is also useful in describing a claimant’s mental residual functional capacity.

Pain symptoms

In cases involving pain, the Social Security Administration will consider, in addition to objective medical evidence from doctors, other evidence, such as observations of lay witnesses, in evaluating a claimant’s symptoms. Family and friends are recognized as sources of information about the claimant’s daily activities, observations of symptoms, precipitating and aggravating factors, functional limitations, a claimant’s prior work record, efforts to work, medical history, treatment and response, effectiveness of medication, home remedies and other factors.

Chronic fatigue syndrome

When a claimant suffers from chronic fatigue syndrome, the Social Security rulings specify that information from neighbors, friends, relatives, or clergy, as well as past employers, rehabilitation counselors and teachers, may be very useful in assessing the claimant’s ability to function on a day-to-day basis.

Reflex sympathetic dystrophy (complex regional pain syndrome)

In cases involving reflex sympathetic dystrophy, the Social Security rulings identify lay witnesses as a source of information about the claimant’s day-to-day functioning. The rulings explicitly permit evidence from neighbors, friends, relatives, clergy, past employers, rehabilitation counselors or teachers regarding the claimant’s impairment, ability to function on a day-to-day basis and capacities over a period of time.

Evaluating lay witness testimony

The Social Security rulings acknowledge that, in evaluating lay witness testimony, “it would be appropriate to consider such factors as the nature and extent of the relationship, whether the evidence is consistent with other evidence, and any other factors that tend to support or refute the evidence.”

Arranging for lay witness testimony

If we serve as your Ohio Social Security disability attorney, we will ask you who you think would be the best witnesses. We will telephone them to discuss their observations. We will probably pick the best one or two witnesses (or in unusual cases more). We will then provide each lay witness with information about the hearing and the sort of testimony expected. Typically, we will send each lay witness a letter notifying the witness of the date, time and place of the hearing.

As we will explain to each lay witness, a disability hearing is very different from a court hearing. There will be no audience or observers at the hearing like there often are at court hearings. A disability hearing is private. The hearing is quite informal, especially when compared to a court hearing. Just about the only formality is that the witness will be expected to testify under oath.

The hearing is held in a small conference room and is presided over by an Administrative Law Judge. The judge is a neutral person whose job it is to find out all the facts about the claimant’s disability. No lawyer represents the government in disability cases. Thus, no lawyer representing the government will cross-examine your friend, relative, neighbor or co-worker.

We will also provide each witness with instructions and information how to testify, how to answer questions, and what facts the witness should testify about. At the hearing, we will ask the lay witness about his or her relationship with you, how long the witness has known you, and how often the witness gets to see you. These questions are to establish the basis for testimony about the witness’s observations.

Essentially, the witness and your Ohio Social Security disability attorney will just have a conversation about you and your disability. There aren’t any peculiar rules for testifying at disability hearings like there are for court testimony. It is okay for the witness to talk to the disability attorney just as though we were talking on the telephone.

Of course, the lay witness is expected to testify truthfully about things that the witness has observed. Sometimes, the judge may ask a lay witness some questions. Judges, in our experience, don’t “cross-examine” witnesses like you might have seen witnesses cross-examined on television. The judge is simply looking for all the facts in order to decide the case fairly. The judge certainly won’t ask any trick questions or questions designed to embarrass.

There are only a few mistakes that witnesses occasionally make in testifying. The worst is when a witness deliberately exaggerates the claimant’s disability, thinking that this will help the claimant win the case. But this usually backfires because the judge simply doesn’t believe it.

Other mistakes occur when a witness tries to give medical testimony, that is, offers medical conclusions that really ought to come from a doctor; or when a witness tries to take over the role of the lawyer and argues the claimant’s case, such as when the witness tells the judge that the claimant can’t work, or should be found disabled because he or she needs help.

As we will explain to each lay witness, there really are only a few rules for testifying:

1. Tell the truth.

2. Don’t exaggerate to try to “help” the claimant.

3. But don’t minimize either.

4. Testify only about things that you have observed.

5. It is okay to give examples and explain your answers by describing those things you have observed.

6. But leave arguing the case to us.

Arranging for written statements from lay observers

In some cases, it may be impossible to present live testimony from a particular lay witness. In those situations, we may want to submit the person’s written statement.

We avoid using the stereotyped letter. A letter stating, in effect, “I have known Mr. Jones for 20 years; he is a hard worker and needs help because he is disabled,” signed by 20 or 30 people is not worth much. Nor are carbon copies or photocopies of the same letter with different signatures.

To be helpful, the statement should be individual. It should set out the relationship of the writer to the claimant, and the length of time they have known each other. It should indicate how the writer has special knowledge of the claimant, and should relate knowledge and observations in as much detail as possible. A statement such as the following can be very effective:

“I am Mary Jones. I live across the street from Mrs. Smith who, I understand, has filed a claim for Social Security disability benefits. I have known Mrs. Smith for seven years; we worked together at the electronics company for five years. I saw her when she fell at the plant and hurt her back.

I go to see her every day. I cook dinner for her and her family at times and twice a week go over and help her into the bathtub, since she can’t get in or out of it by herself. I also take her to the doctor’s office each week, since she takes medicine that makes her too dizzy to drive, according to what she tells me.

She is an honest person, in my opinion, and has been a good worker and appears to have financial difficulties since she had to stop work. I don’t believe she would be away from work if it weren’t necessary.

She spends most of her time in bed, has quit going to church and it’s been over a month since I’ve seen her walking in her yard. Her main problem is with her back; she wears a back brace all the time.”

If we need to submit a lay witness statement in your case, we will provide the witness with instructions and tips on how to prepare the statement and what types of information the statement should provide and what it should omit.

Help available

Presenting a lay witness’s testimony or written statement is one of the critical ways in which a knowledgeable Ohio Social Security disability attorney can help an applicant obtain disability benefits. If you are not already represented by an Ohio Social Security attorney, and you would like our law firm’s evaluation, provide a brief description of your claim using the form to the right. Or you may contact us at:

Roose & Ressler
Ohio Social Security disability lawyers
E-mail us

Lorain Ohio 440-985-1085
or toll-free 800-448-4211

Mansfield Ohio 419-524-5333
or toll-free 888-690-5033

Oberlin Ohio 440-774-7700
or toll-free 800-448-4211

Toledo Ohio 419-242-1515
or toll-free 888-679-5656

Wooster Ohio 330-263-5333
or toll-free 888-690-5033