Lloyd Thompson v. Richard S. Schweiker, Secretary of Health and Human Services

Lloyd Thompson, appellant, filed an action in the district court to review his claim for disability benefits and for supplemental security income (SSI), both of which had been denied by the Secretary of Health and Human Services (Secretary). The district court adopted the recommendation of the magistrate, to whom it had referred appellant’s claims, and granted summary judgment in favor of the Secretary. Thompson appeals.

Thompson, now 52, worked primarily as a sheet metal worker and bottler until 1967, after which he has not lived nor worked outside a sheltered environment. From July, 1967 until 1975, he lived in a residential ward of Wadsworth Veterans’ Hospital. While there he was treated for epilepsy, alcoholism and respiratory disease and he suffered fractures of the knee and leg in accidents at the hospital.

He suffered many grand mal and even more petit mal epileptic seizures. In fact, from July 1967 to December 1971, he suffered from two to twenty petit mal seizures every other week and from one to four grand mal seizures every few months. For at least two years thereafter, the number of seizures increased but later decreased substantially as a result of increased…