James W. Moore v. Commissioner of the Social Security Administration, Being Sued as Jo Anne Barnhart, Commissioner Social Security Administration

We are asked to decide what weight an administrative law judge may give to an applicant’s employment that begins after the end of the period for which the applicant is seeking Social Security disability benefits. We hold that such employment, unless wholly inconsistent with the claimed disability, is not a “specific and legitimate” reason for rejecting the opinions of examining physicians contradicted only by a nonexamining physician. It follows that such a record of work does not supply the more demanding “clear and convincing” reason required to reject the medically supported testimony of an applicant.

I.

James Moore was born on December 28, 1957. He attended programs for developmentally delayed students in grade and high school and lived a sheltered life with his parents until he was 31 years old. He was, in the opinion of an examining psychologist, “evidently very, very dependent upon his parents.”

When his mother died on April 19, 1989 — several years after his father committed suicide — Moore was thrust into a period of deep depression with severe somatic symptoms and psychotic features. Soon after his mother’s death, he applied for disability benefits with the Social…