Client Vignette: Diane Risden

CLIENT VIGNETTE: DIANE RISDEN LONG BRANCH, NJ

Diane Risden suffered from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome so severe that she was bed-ridden for weeks at a time. But the bureaucrats who rejected her Social Security disability claim could not wear down her will or her resolve. And Legal Services was there to help, bringing the law to bear on a maddening miscarriage of justice that was—after a long, drawn-out process—finally set right.

Diane was 34 years old, a single parent, living with her son in the big home she had grown up in, working full-time as a bookkeeper, when illness struck. First, there was the knock-down blow of the Epstein-Barr virus; then the knock-out punch of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, which sapped her strength and energy, shortened her attention span, and left her confined to bed, subject to depression and intense muscle pain. In March 1991, Diane applied for and started receiving state disability payments. She also applied for Social Security disability benefits which, based on the well-paying job she had prior to her illness, would provide enough money to hold her life together. Those Social Security benefits were denied, not to be awarded until six and a half years later, after most of Diane’s life had fallen apart.

Diane had been told that, because of her young age and high level of expected benefits, she should expect delays in having Social Security disability benefits awarded; she would have to get by for a while on state disability and welfare. No one told her that the delays would last more than six years; that her mother, moving back to New Jersey from Illinois to care for her, would lose her house; that her car and other possessions would fall to ruin; or that her son would have to leave her, to live with his estranged father in Florida.

Fortunately, someone did tell Diane about Legal Services, so that she was not alone in her long struggle. Through all the extended periods of official silence, the blizzard of paperwork, the unexplained postponements, the "lost" documents, the repeated court appearances going over the same ground, Diane had a Legal Services attorney who would not give up, who kept pushing for what she knew was right.

There were others on the case, but Adriana Agudelo of Ocean-Monmouth Legal Services finally brought it home. In October 1997, after her third court appearance for the same claim, Diane Risden was awarded benefits, including back payments for what she should have received since March 1991.

The bureaucratic delays didn’t end there: there were disputes about the exact amount the benefits should be, hold-ups in awarding benefits for her son, and a drawn-out payment schedule. But Diane had achieved a measure of relief, and the end was in sight—having a working car again, moving to a new place in a safer neighborhood and, most important, welcoming her son back home after the school year was over in Florida. Though too long delayed, justice had finally been delivered, and Diane knew she had Legal Services to thank for it.