Bass v. Harris

503 F. Supp. 1163, 1980 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 15552
CourtDistrict Court, W.D. North Carolina
DecidedDecember 19, 1980
DocketNo. C-C-79-376
StatusPublished

This text of 503 F. Supp. 1163 (Bass v. Harris) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, W.D. North Carolina primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Bass v. Harris, 503 F. Supp. 1163, 1980 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 15552 (W.D.N.C. 1980).

Opinion

[1164]*1164JUDGMENT

McMILLAN, District Judge.

Gary C. Bass filed an application on May 3, 1978, for disability benefits under the Social Security Act (Tr. 151). The application was routinely denied without a hearing (Tr. 155); it was denied on reconsideration; and plaintiff requested a hearing. The case was heard before an administrative law judge on July 5, 1979. The administrative law judge filed an eighteen-page single-spaced decision (Tr. 7-25), denying recovery and finding that plaintiff was not under a compensable disability. The Appeals Council affirmed on October 10,1979 (Tr. 4) and the administrative law judge’s decision thereby became the final decision of the Secretary of Health and Human Services. Plaintiff brought this suit challenging the action of the Secretary and requesting the court to order that he be paid appropriate benefits. The case was heard in this court on November 13, 1980. Briefs have been filed and the case is now ready for decision.

THE EVIDENCE

Plaintiff, Gary C. Bass, was born in 1928, has a tenth grade education, is 5'-5" tall and weighs around 155 pounds. He is married and has two grown children. He lives in Charlotte (Tr. 55-55). After leaving high school he worked part time for the A & P Tea Company for two or three years; he was then drafted into the Army and served in Korea in the Eighth Regiment of the First Calvary Division.

On Sunday, July 8, 1951, while on that military assignment, he was shot twice in the right knee by a Chinese soldier with a machine gun. The injuries severed a main artery and nerve, and later made necessary the amputation of the right leg at the knee joint level. After a period of convalescence and some work at the officers’ club in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, he was discharged from the Army (Tr. 56-57). He got a job working for Duke Power Company in their Charlotte office, in a clerical capacity, maintaining files and recording deeds and other papers in connection with the land transactions of that employer (Tr. 58, 90, 84-91). He worked for Duke Power Company from 1954 until the end of May, 1978, at which time he was retired on account of his long-standing and increasing physical and emotional disabilities. (Tr. 58 et seq.).

For his twenty-four years of service with Duke Power Company he draws a retirement benefit consistent with his employment contract with Duke.

For getting his leg shot off in the Korean War, he draws disability benefits from the Veterans’ Administration consistent with VA policy.

His present claim, which must be considered independent of those other separately funded entitlements, is a claim for statutory social security benefits for a period of total disability beginning in the summer of 1978 and continuing thereafter.

The plaintiff’s job at Duke Power Company was a clerical job requiring sitting, standing and walking. His job was a combination of bookkeeping, filing, recording and accounting (Tr. 86-88). He would go from his desk to the various files, would handle telephoning and answer inquiries; would stamp and record documents received; maintained ledgers; made records; and supplied information (Tr. 87-91). He worked at his desk about half the time and was “up and moving about half the time” (Tr. 88). Although he had never given the subject much thought, he “imagined” in response to a suggestion from the administrative law judge that chances for promotion would be “slim”; his supervisor was just a year older than he (Tr. 91).

Bass had a lot of contacts with doctors. About 1973 he was discovered to have a cancer of the colon. This was removed by Dr. Keller (Tr. 93). The surgery left him with chronic intermittent diarrhea which causes problems of incontinence at work and at home (Tr. 71, 72, 191).

In 1974 his gall bladder had to be removed, again by Dr. Keller. Dr. Keller still sees him annually for a check-up on account of the original malignancy. He is an “occasional only” drinker. He has attacks of diarrhea several times a month [1165]*1165which may cause bowel movements seven or eight times a day (Tr. 73), and which often result in soiling his clothes.

He has a partly fused lumbosacral joint (Tr. 121, 189). Through the twenty-four years of walking on his arthritic leg he has developed arthritis in the low back and hips, which produces severe pain and insomnia (Tr. 59). He also has pain in his good knee and his good ankle (Tr. 59, 60). That pain has increased through the years.

Various doctors have prescribed various drugs, including Darvocet, for pain (Tr. 60). This makes him groggy and sleepy. He has to take three to six of these pain pills each day. This pain may occur at all times but is normally worse in the late afternoon. He has phantom pains in the “foot” of his missing right leg.

Sometimes the artificial leg malfunctions and is unstable and results in falls (Tr. 65, 66, 67). He has had falls in the soda shop, on the elevator and elsewhere, and he sometimes uses crutches. He broke a finger in one such fall (Tr. 68). He has back pain even when sitting down (Tr. 68), and in driving a car (Tr. 68-69). Carrying weights of even as little as five pounds is risky because of the problem of balance and the possibility of falling (Tr. 69-70).

During the first two decades or so of his post-war life he engaged in many physical activities such as handyman work, painting, coaching Little League baseball, gardening and cutting the grass. In the late 70’s he had to give up “all those little projects” that he enjoyed so much (Tr. 71).

In recent years he has suffered from frequent periods of depression; he cries easily (Tr. 75), twice a week or so. His periods of depression come on without warning and last for two or three hours (Tr. 76). He has a recurring rash on his forearms and one leg. This rash requires medication. His back pain radiates into his hip (Tr. 76-77).

His medication, described for the administrative law judge on pages 77-84 of the record, includes Valium for nerves, three or four times a week; Atarex and Cordran, a cream for the itching and rash; Dalmane to help him sleep; Azene for nerves; and Corectol for constipation (Tr. 84). He does not take all these medicines all the time because he does not wish to become addicted (Tr. 81). His orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Miller, told him that his developing arthritis was a natural consequence of the amputation and his advancing years. The prescribed exercises did not give him much in the way of good results (Tr. 92-93).

He occupies himself essentially with low key activity at home plus trips to the shopping center and post office and such places (Tr. 96-98). The rash has appeared on his arms and on the back of his head and on the stump of his right leg and on his left leg (Tr. 102-3). He had visited Dr. Mize, his most recent attending physician, “probably ten times” in the year before the hearing (Tr. 104).

Mrs. Martha Bass, plaintiffs wife, testified briefly (Tr. 106 et seq.) in corroboration of the plaintiff’s complaints of limitation of physical activity and his other contentions.

At an adjourned hearing the testimony of Dr. Edwin S. Mize was taken. He has seen the patient regularly since October, 1977. His history was of progressive back pain, depression, anxiety, headaches, insomnia and loss of appetite. He also complained of tinnitus, or ringing in the ears; vertigo; body tremors and tension, diarrhea and fatigue (Tr. 115-119). Dr.

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503 F. Supp. 1163, 1980 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 15552, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/bass-v-harris-ncwd-1980.