Richards v. Astrue

Full title: KAREN RICHARDS O/B/O M.M. Plaintiff, v. MICHAEL J. ASTRUE, COMMISSIONER OF…

Court: United States District Court, D. New Jersey

Date published: Sep 29, 2008

CIVIL ACTION NO. 07-3891 (D.N.J. Sep. 29, 2008)

Opinion

CIVIL ACTION NO. 07-3891.

September 29, 2008

LANGTON ALTER, Rahway, NJ, Attorneys for Plaintiff, ASA 7508.

ORDER

KATHARINE HAYDEN, District Judge

This matter having come before the Court on oral argument on September 26, 2008 and the Court having reviewed the submissions and heard argument from Langton Alter, attorneys for the plaintiff (Abraham S. Alter, Esquire) and from the Commissioner of Social Security (Sandra Grossfeld, Esquire) appearing, and the Court having been persuaded that (1) there is no substantial evidence supporting the decision of the Commissioner's ALJ (Richard L. Desteno, ALJ); and (2) that substantial evidence exists in the record to an overwhelming degree to support a finding of disability on account of the fact that the infant plaintiff herein manifests marked limitations in three of the six domains of functioning, namely, a) acquiring and using information; b) attending and completing tasks; and c) interacting with others^_ and thus evidences an impairment which is functionally equivalent to the Commissioner's Listing of Impairments, it is on this 29^th day of September, 2008

_ The Court's oral decision specified "acquiring using information" "attending completing tasks." However, the record evidence cited by the Court supports a finding that MM manifests marked limitations in the domain of interacting with others (examples: psychologists direct observations of MM in class; MM's mother's undisputed reports of MM's behavior in home recreational settings, and both school home based reports of his inability to respond to 1 on 1 group instruction; school suspensions for fighting; ALJ's finding that positive interaction is limited to those occasions when MM was "tested," as opposed to taught).

ORDERED (1) that this matter be reversed; (2) that the infant plaintiff, M.M. be hereby adjudicated to be disabled within the meaning of the Social Security Act and that; (3) this matter be remanded to the Commissioner of Social Security for the sole purpose of calculating and distributing child's benefits under SSI to be payable to the plaintiff.