Overruling A Court With The Stroke Of A Pen

      From a notice of rescission of acquiescence published in the Federal Register today:

... On September 23, 2015, we published AR [Acquiescence Ruling] 15-1(4) (80 FR 57418) to reflect the holding in Radford v. Colvin, 734 F.3d 288 (4th Cir. 2013). In Radford, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit held that listing 1.04A required a claimant to show only “that each of the symptoms are present, and that the claimant has suffered or can be expected to suffer from nerve root compression continuously for at least 12 months,” 734 F.3d at 294. Contrary to our policy that the requisite level of severity requires the simultaneous presence of all the medical criteria in paragraph A, the Court of Appeals held that a claimant need not show that each criterion was present simultaneously or in particularly close proximity. 

This rescission notice is the result of publication of the final rule, “Revised Medical Criteria for Evaluating Musculoskeletal Disorders,” published on December 3, 2020 at 85 FR 78164.