Questions at Your Disability Hearing Pertaining to Your Ability to Sit

It is likely that sometime during your disability hearing, the administrative law judge will ask how long you are able to sit.  If your condition requires that you take frequent breaks from sitting, describe in detail what this involves.  Simply saying you need to “shift” in your chair is a point barely worth making, since all of us shift in our chairs, and such an action requires no interruption to one’s work.  A good, detailed answer might go something like this:

Judge: How long are you able to sit?
Claimant: I can force myself to sit for a whole hour; but after that, I won’t be much good for the rest of the day.  Doing tasks at home, like paying bills, I can only sit for about 20 minutes at a time, and I need to walk around for about 15 minutes before I can sit again.  At work, the amount of time I can sit for continuously grows shorter as the day wears on. Sitting is hard on my back.  I have less pain when I sit in my recliner chair with my legs up.  Even though I can sit for long periods of time in that chair, it’s hard for me to pay bills there, so I usually sit at the dining room table to do that.

Provide as much information as you can about what you need to do after periods of sitting.  Do you stand up, stretch, and sit back down?  Do you alternate sitting and standing?   If so, could you do this all day long?  Do you walk around after sitting or standing in one place?  How often, and for how long each time?

Maybe you need extra breaks from work.  If you were given one—or more—what would you do? Sit?  Walk around?  Lie down?  Sit in a recliner?  How much time would you need for each break?

If you lawyer or the judge asks how long you can sit in an 8-hour work day, what he or she needs to know is the total time during an 8-hour day that you are capable of sitting, even if only sitting in short stretches.  Be ready to answer such questions with a reasonable estimate.  You should also be ready to answer similar questions about standing or other workplace actions.

An experienced Ocala disability lawyer is the best resource you can have when trying to formulate answers to such seemingly simple yet deceptively complex questions.  Call Ocala disability lawyer CJ Henry today for a free consultation.