Michigan District Court Reverses ALJ

September 29, 2016.  The ALJ denied benefits to a claimant with degenerative disc disease, among other impairments, after rejecting the opinion of her primary care physician.  The district court found that the ALJ erred by substituting her own lay opinion for that of the claimant’s physician, whose opinion was based on his own abnormal clinical findings, the claimant’s statements of disabling pain, and x-rays, and remanded for further proceedings.