Jerry R. KAIL, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Margaret HECKLER, Secretary of Health and Human Services, Defendant-Appellee

Jerry Kail, the claimant, appeals from summary judgment in favor of the Secretary of Health and Human Services affirming the Secretary’s denial of Kail’s application for Social Security Disability Insurance Benefits and Supplemental Security Income. We reverse and remand, because the Secretary’s finding that claimant is capable of sedentary work is unsupported by substantial evidence, and because the Secretary improperly relied upon Medical-Vocational Guidelines in denying benefits.

FACTS

Claimant was hospitalized in 1976 for a lung infection which was eventually diagnosed as atypical tuberculosis. In 1979 most of his right lung was removed. Over the course of the next few years claimant underwent a number of tests including spi-rometric studies, arterial blood testing, lung volume studies and pulmonary stress testing. One of the claimant’s treating physicians opined that he was permanently “disabled due to desaturation of oxygenation with exercise ... a function of both dead space from surgery and probable exercise worsened obstructive airway disease.” None of the other physicians reporting on claimant state any specific conclusions regarding the issue of disability, although…