Joel B. Toomey
How Judge Toomey decides
Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
What persuades
Social Security medical-opinion regulations (20 C.F.R. 404.1520c): the ALJ need not address every factor but must explain supportability and consistency; a treating source's check-box opinion that is inconsistent with the majority of the objective medical evidence and lacks internal support can properly be found not persuasive. A claimant who reargues those opinions is improperly asking the court to reweigh the evidence.
“The ALJ's finding that Dr. Riebsame's extreme limitations were not persuasive is supported by substantial evidence.”
VA disability ratings in SSA appeals: under the revised regulations a decision by another governmental agency (e.g. a VA service-connected disability rating) is 'inherently neither valuable nor persuasive,' and the ALJ need not analyze it; failure to address the VA rating is not reversible error.
“the VA's disability rating is not probative and the ALJ's failure to consider it was not error.”
Motion outcomes
Counted from classified signed orders only. Percentages are shown only where the sample is large enough to be meaningful; smaller samples are reported as raw counts.
| Social security appeal N = 1 |
Denied: 1 | counts only |
A "1 of 1" is one ruling, not a tendency. Treat small samples as illustrative, not predictive.
Signed rulings
A grounded sample of orders signed by this judge, with the verbatim dispositive language.
“The Commissioner's decision is AFFIRMED. The Clerk of Court is DIRECTED to enter judgment accordingly and close the file.”
Caseload & timing
From public federal docket records for this judge.
Caseload mix is descriptive, from search_dockets enumeration; no FJC IDB baseline available for this court/period.