Van Horn, John v. Schweiker, Richard S., Secretary of Health and Human Services

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• holding that an ALJ may not use his or her expertise against that of a physician presenting competent medical evidence
• stating that the court “would expect [the ALJ] at least to state that he found a witness not credible before wholly disregarding his testimony”
• stating that an ALJ should note in his decision when he did not find a witness credible
• finding that an ALJ should find that a witness lacked credibility before wholly disregarding their testimony
• “[A]n ALJ is not free to set his own expertise against that of physicians who present competent medical evidence.”
• “The ALJ could only have reached his conclusion by relying solely on his own non-expert observations at the hearing—in other words, by relying on the roundly condemned ‘sit and squirm’ method of deciding disability cases.”

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).