Frank* is a 49-year-old self-described bayou boy from Des Allemands. Frank dropped out of school very early in life (around 8th grade) to help his dad with the family’s fishing business. Frank spent much of his early adult life crabbing, catching catfish, and shrimping. While he was not formally educated and had difficulty reading and writing, Frank was a hard-worker with an excellent work-ethic and lots of common sense. He eventually was able to work his way into oil field work as a deckhand and on an oil spill cleanup crew.Frank had suffered from neck pain for years. He thought it was just a degenerative condition given the heavy nature of his work and kept ignoring it until eventually he could not any longer. One day while crabbing with a friend, Frank started having uncontrollable tremors and lost feeling in his arm. He was rushed to the hospital. Doctors performed imaging and found advanced spondylosis with central canal and foraminal stenosis along with muscle atrophy and a weak grip on the right. Surgery consult was immediately recommended. Frank eventually met with one of the top neurosurgeons in the New Orleans area Dr. John Steck who diagnosed him with a spondylotic myelopathy with neurologic deficit and recommended a multilevel discectomy and fusion from C3-C7 in hopes of enlarging the spinal canal. The surgery was completed shortly thereafter.Frank followed his surgery with physical therapy but remained with trembling, diminished grip strength, and muscle atrophy. He could only walk with an assistive device and had significant unsteadiness and a wide gait even with the device.
Frank’s initial disability claim was denied by SSA after an inter-agency doctor who never examined Frank stated Frank could perform sedentary work after a few months of physical therapy. This non-examining doctor completely ignored the neurosurgeon’s note that Frank’s limitations would be permanent given the muscle atrophy and chronic denervation. The non-examining doctor also ignored SSA’s own consultative examiner who stated that Frank needed significant assistance in life and probably should be in an assistive living facility after recovery from surgery given the permanent limitations.
Given his limited education and significant, permanent limitations, Frank was at a loss for what to do next. He called Louisiana Disability Law after finding us in the phone book.
After reviewing Frank’s information and claim file, our team at Louisiana Disability Law developed a winning strategy to help Frank obtain the benefits he worked his life paying for and now needed to survive. Our approach was multi-pronged in his case – (1) try to expedite his claim since Frank was living from house to house and car to car, (2) work with Frank’s doctors to clearly explain why the limitations were permanent, and (3) use SSA’s own consultative examiner to bolster Frank’s doctors statements since they were consistent with each other (which is usually not the case).
Frank was relieved to have a legal team that truly cared about his recovery and worked hard to assist him throughout his case. Since Frank was homeless for most of the time during our representation, he appreciated that we were able to work with him when he called (and he didn’t have to call back multiple times or wait for a return call). We were also able to help Frank arrange Medicaid provided medical transportation for him to obtain treatment for his numerous medical conditions.
In the end, we were able to successfully prove that Frank was disabled and entitled to his Social Security Disability benefits. Frank also obtained Medicare so that his medical treatment could continue with a higher quality of service at minimal direct cost to Frank. If Frank remains disabled until his full retirement age he will have recovered over $150,000 to help him survive.
Our team at Louisiana Disability Law loves fighting for the Franks of the world. Loyd grew up in Bayou Gauche and holds a special place in his heart for the hard-working folks of this region. Loyd knows and has seen too many hard-working “bayou boys” and “bayou girls” taken advantage of by SSA simply due to a lack of formal education, and he fights hard on their behalf to undo the injustice caused by this educational inequality.
