Jan 5, 2007

Social Security Employees Face Large Fines

There have been rumors for some time that Social Security's Office of Inspector General was investigating one Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) for his conduct in allowing benefits to a large number of Social Security disability claimants. The Des Moines Register now confirms these rumors, but makes it clear that the ALJ is now deceased. It is other employees who acted at the ALJ's direction who are being targeted. See the excerpt below:
In deciding whether to award Social Security disability benefits to certain people, a government administrative law judge will often rely on expert testimony as to the applicant's employability. However, one such judge, the late J. Michael Johnson of West Des Moines, is alleged to have repeatedly relied on expert testimony obtained from one individual in one disability case. In that case, the expert had answered broad, hypothetical questions. Johnson allegedly applied the expert's hypothetical answers to 700 subsequent cases that he handled, awarding benefits in most, if not all, of those cases.

The inspector general's office, which has been investigating the matter for at least four years, contends that it was improper for Johnson's written decisions not to have disclosed the reliance on expert opinions that were not tied to the cases under consideration.

Johnson died in August 2003. The fines that are now being proposed would be levied against three Social Security Administration lawyers who wrote Johnson's decisions and one management official who oversaw the work of the decision-writers.

The inspector general is proposing civil fines of $5,000 for each of the 700 cases in question. As a result, the manager is facing a potential fine of $3.5 million, and the three decision-writers are each facing fines of more than $100,000.

Federal records indicate that the inspector general's office initially tried to bring criminal charges in the matter, but prosecutors in two states turned down the case.

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