Executive Gothic ~ Jude Harvey

I have been holding out for fear of *jinxing* myself, but I've come to expect the worst and also the ridiculous where the SSA is concerned, so I've decided not to worry about posting the seemingly "good news".

 

The ALJ did make and OTR decision and on March 14, 2008 I received the decision letter. The decision, oddly enough (or not, as the case may be) was fully favorable. While I was pleased about this, or relieved is a better word, I was hardly excited or ecstatic about it. It's too little, too late for my husband and I. We're in considerable debt and don't have too many options on getting out of it....and here's the punchline - In mid January, we found out that I'm pregnant. OOoooh shit!

 

Even with this favorable decision, it is likely that there will be further issues and problems at the payment center when they attempt to calculate my backpay and also my monthly SSDI payment as this claim was launched internationally in the UK. As per usual, I am expecting the worst regarding this next stage, seeing as this same Payment Center lied about the UK Pension Services not sending the totalization documents, which they actually did, and which I managed to get hard copy evidence to the effect of. Yes, this is the same office full of lazy, incompetent bastards that will unfortunately be responsible for tallying my monies...goody-goody for me...Christ on a bike!

 

Anyway, I have to say that my stress levels have dropped somewhat, but I'm sure I'll be getting aggravated with both the Trenton and Baltimore SSA offices in the near future. At least I'm getting a break for a few weeks. More to come soon hopefully. Wish me luck!

Ok, this is really becoming a friggin' carnival freak-show now. I arrived for my Law Court Hearing on January 30, 2008 after nearly 6 years of the most ridiculous, difficult, assinine and uncalled-for bullshit that anyone could imagine from an agency that's SUPPOSED to be there for you in your time of dire need and NOT fuck you around until you wind up dying (did you know that last year, 16,000 SSDI claimants died while waiting to receive a decision?) only for the following to happen...

 

After the ALJ introduced himself and swore me in under oath, the hearing began. Ten minutes into this hearing, the entire office lost all electric power. ALL OF IT. The audio recording system, of course, was inoperable; the stenographer's computer dropped dead (and she was sounding alarmed about all of what she'd just recorded was lost) and here we all are; me, my lawyer, my husband, my Aunt and the Judge, sitting there in this little hearing room, like a bunch of fucking idiots, IN THE DARK. Do you think the SSA's IT department could have put USB backup batteries on the audio recording system and steno's computer though? Of COURSE THEY FRIGGIN' DIDN'T.

 

UN-FUCKING-BELIEVABLE!!!!

 

Needless to say, after about 40 minutes of waiting in vain for the power to be restored, the Judge spoke to my lawyer in private for 5 minutes, then came out to apologise to us all, confirming that the hearing could not be continued. He then stated that he'd either be calling us back to resume proceedings or would be making and OTR decision.

 

I am at the point where I would just love to tell the SSA to stuff their fucking disability benefit and CHOKE on the mother fucker. I would not have subjected myself to this seemingly undending bullshit if I was able to return to even part-time work!!! I hope the ALJ does decide to make an OTR decision because I have had ENOUGH of the SSA's fucking bullshit and I do NOT want to see or hear from any SSA offices or workers EVER AGAIN with regard to my SSDI claim once this case is decided.

 

On that note, and while I am still hoping that somehow I will receive a fully favorable decision from the Judge with no further problems cropping up, my Plan B is locked and loaded. And I am DEAD FUCKING SERIOUS ABOUT THIS;

 

Purely on principle, I will see it as my duty to immediately apply for a full-time position with the SSA, seeing as these fucking assholes are crying about how understaffed they are. Well, you incompetent, mismanaged cocksuckers, if YOU decide once and for all that I'm not disabled, which means YOU decide that I am still capable of holding an 8-hour-a-day, 40-hour-a-week full time job, and you're so badly understaffed, then I think you'll have no choice but to hire me full time under your Equal Opportunity Employer rules. And let's see how long it takes you to fire me for calling in sick and leaving work early due to illness, or fucking up countless documents because my pain and tiredness interfere  with my concentration. LET'S SEE HOW LONG YOU CAN KEEP SOMEONE DISABLED IN A FULL TIME POSITION WITHOUT FIRING THEM! Even better - LET'S SEE IF YOU'RE STUPID ENOUGH TO REFUSE ME EMPLOYMENT!

 

COME ON, YOU LAME-ASS, DISORGANIZED, LYING, ARROGANT MOTHER-FUCKERS!! LET'S TANGO!!

I received my Notice of Hearing letter today. I was surprised to see pages instead of one single page with the date, place and time on it. Most of this hearing letter outlines a brief explanation of why the hearing has been scheduled, what SSA criteria will apply and how the judge bases his decision on the case file, other documents & paperwork and also my testimony (or more like my lawyer's testimony, although it does appear I'm going to have to open my mouth at this hearing....not so happy about that....) and the testimony of my witness. Now, I already knew these things from having read the Federal Register about 1004369 times myself...

 

What I didn't know is that SSDI claimants can request subpoenas. Ah, the temptation of it all....but do I really want to bring incompetent imbeciles who I've hated dealing with thus far to my precious law court hearing? To piss me off & fuck this up too? Not really....but I will be asking my lawyer what she thinks of the idea. I would love to have at least 4 people subpoenaed; 3 from Trenton and 1 from Baltimore, if only to get some hard explanations from these idiots. Here's something else I didn't know; my hearing will be recorded via audio. I need to find out if I can get a transcript of this for my own records, or a copy of the recording if not in writing.

 

Also, to my shock, surprise & delight, I got one of my "Big Three" important questions answered in this letter. It clearly states that the judge has been reviewing my SSDI case submitted May 15, 2002. WOO-HOO!!!! Yaaay! Goodie gumdrops...the fuckers actually backdated the claim. I almost crapped myself. Seriously. Something else I noticed in this letter - there is NO MENTION of the SSDI claim I submitted in September 2005; so I'm guessing that the documents and information in that claim have either been added to the first claim, or it has been dropped. Either way, I'm very pleased about finding this information out.

 

Because this question has been answered, the discrepancy of the onset of illness being October 2004 should be null & void, so that's another question answered. The only question left is do I actually have enough credits to be eligible for SSDI; the Chief ALJ in Falls Church VA sent a letter back in Sept 2007 saying I do have the credits, so I'll have to wait & see if the judge agrees. I don't see how he wouldn't? And also my last date of insurance is going to be decided at this hearing. There is a letter in my legal paperwork from the US Embassy's Federal Benefits Unit stating that I was insured before the date I  became ill, which was Nov 2, 2000, and this letter can be given as evidence during the hearing if the judge hasn't already seen it.

 

One last thing - my case is now with the B&B lawyers local to the Voorhees law court office and I spoke to one of them briefly today to expand on how confused and complicated my case is. It was a good thing I did this - they had just gotten the case and hadn't looked into it yet. I provided them with a very condensed version of the chronology of events from July 2002 until present, and they've logged the info into their systems so all their legal associates can access it in case they need to. The lawyer I spoke to gave me the biggest boost of confidence yet - she gave me the heads up that the judge assigned to my case happens to be one of the nicer, more compassionate judges, so I should be fine.

 

It's looking very promising, so I'll leave it there for now & will be updating more info soon. Stay tuned....

 

 

 

 

 

 

A member of my legal team called this morning at 10am but I missed the call due to much needed sleep. I called her back at 11am as per her request left on our voice mail. She informed me that at long last (for me, anyway) a hearing date had been received from the Law Court in Voorhees by their office. Yes, the end is truly nigh...or so I hope. I've had enough of this not-knowing bullsh*t.

 

Anyway, the hearing is scheduled for January 30, 2008. She couldn't give me further details apart from the name of the attorney who will be representing me and the address of the building the hearing will be held at. However, she did tell me that B&B would be sending some paperwork for me to sign and also a DVD video regarding the details of how these law court hearings proceed. That's handy. She also told me that I should NOT open my mouth about ANYTHING under ANY circumstances while at this hearing, unless the attorney or the judge ask me to speak. She then proceeded to tell me a horror story about another case she'd been working on a few years back where the judge had approved the claimant, but then the claimant started spewing about how long she'd waited, how bad the SSA was with her claim and so forth...and apparently this judge revoked his approval and stamped the claim DENIED right there in front of her & her attorney. Sounds like any other judge if you ask me. So the general rule here will be to "ZIP it" until spoken to. Boy, I'm going to need sedatives for this one.....I really am.

 

I will be speaking to my attorney a day or so before the hearing and will be asking if I am allowed to take notes, or if notes/minutes are taken at these hearings, and whether I can get hard copies of these and also the entire SSDI claim file. Most importantly, I will be asking her advice on whether applying to sue the SSA would be practical or not, and whether B&B would take this kind of case on. We shall see, but for now I'm glad that this whole life-draining, illness-worsening fiasco is nearly at what should be it's end.

 

Take my advice - NEVER become disabled if you can help it. The experience in dealing with the SSA itself causes disability. How ironic is that?

 

Updates and details to follow after the hearing (unless some other happy horse-sh*t occurs between now & then, that is)....

 

 

 

I spoke to my legal team today to find out any new information regarding the adjudication processing of my SSDI claims. Since both of the CE doctors outright refused to deal with the medical release statements, insisting that my lawyers had to contact the SSA themselves to request their reports (which is delaying the process further) the only thing which has happened is that the SSA has contacted my lawyers with an answer to their request for the Totalization documentation which is being used in my claims file. Of course, that answer was "nope, you can't have that documentation because the local field office (aka TRENTON) doesn't have the case file".

 

While it is true that the Trenton SSA office does not currently have the paper file (because it's with the Law Court Judge now), my legal team said that the SSA's excuse for not being able to send the documentation is pretty much bullshit & that they are supposed to send whatever documentation is requested of them, no matter which office or person has it. I'm pretty sure this is against the FOIA, so it's yet another crate of ammunition to me for the possible Federal Court action I am planning to take once the claims business is done.

 

I only say 'possible' because you have to ask the SSA for permission to sue them.....isn't that great?

How about this...."Hey, Ted Bundy.....can we please sue you for killing our family members?" Or this one..."Excuse me, Mr. Dahmer, would you mind terribly if we sued you as you have killed and eaten our Great Auntie LouLou?"  Yet another..."Dear Enron, We would like to humbly appeal for the right to sue the f*ck out of all of you fat-cat bastards for screwing us completely". Hmmmmm....this kind of thing probably wouldn't work in the rest of the Judicial system.....I guess this is why the SSA employees act like such elitist c*nts all the time. The likelihood of any of them getting sued, let alone getting fired with the understaffing issue they apparently have right now, is slim to none.

 

My lawyers told me today that the Judge reviewing my claims will most likely call a hearing and not make a decision based on what's in my file because it is too confusing, too complicated and the paperwork in general has so many discrepancies. I would prefer a hearing so I can hear my lawyers explaining to the Judge each and every fuck-up which has occurred during the past 5 years in dealing with Trenton and Baltimore, and also the US Embassy's Federal Benefits Unit. Of course, this does not mean the Judge will find me disabled. I'm hoping the investigation which my lawyers are carrying out on the CE doctors will reinforce that their opinions mean absolute crap compared to the 8 years worth of UK and US medical notes that I have in the file. If they never reviewed them, THAT IS NOT MY PROBLEM! Just like it IS NOT MY PROBLEM THAT YOU ARE UNDERSTAFFED, SSA!

 

Ok, I have to stop now. I'm just going to start bitching again. It's not worth it. I will add more as & when.