Texas District Court Reverses ALJ

September 15, 2015. A claimant with fibromyalgia, among other impairments, was found to be not disabled. The ALJ found that the claimant’s fibromyalgia was not severe, based on lack of objective medical evidence. The district court found that the ALJ had “misconstrued the applicable legal standards” when he made this determination. As fibromyalgia is very difficult to confirm, many courts will recognize that this is a disabling impairment and no objective tests exist to confirm its existence. In this case, there were numerous treatment notes indicating a diagnosis of fibromyalgia. The district court remanded the case for further proceedings because the ALJ improperly relied on a lack of objective findings to determine that the claimant’s fibromyalgia was not a medically determinable impairments, in violation of agency regulations.