We have had recent talk of "outliers" at Social Security, Administrative Law Judges (ALJs) who approve or deny too many or too few claims or who just dispose of too many or too few cases, but in one way perhaps the most prominent outlier of all of Social Security's ALJs is Richard Harper, the Hearing Office Chief Administrative Law Judge (HOCALJ) in Charlotte. He is holding down this position even though he is 90 years of age.
He was Administrative Law Judge In Charge (ALJIC), the old title for what is now HOCALJ, in 1978 when I interviewed for a job as a staff attorney. I took a job in Raleigh, where I was living, instead. He's still there.
He was Administrative Law Judge In Charge (ALJIC), the old title for what is now HOCALJ, in 1978 when I interviewed for a job as a staff attorney. I took a job in Raleigh, where I was living, instead. He's still there.
Judicial discretion and the powers vested in them via the law of the land. How can you fight outliers? It's called the AC. I don't think that SSA can do a whole lot, administratively, about these outliers, in fact, I hope SSA cannot do much. Every profession has outliers; it's part of life. We know they are their, but the final check/balance is in the multistep appeals process.
ReplyDeleteSorry about the mispelling above.
ReplyDeleteyes the A/C should theoretically be the buffer that eliminates many problems we have today. if they actually did their job and quit rubberstamping bad decisions, this would clean up a whole lot of messes at the ODAR level (unjustified denials and approvals, "outliers," etc) and the federal court level (cleaning up bad FIT language, bad reasoning, etc).
ReplyDeleteUm, are you advocating age discrimination? If there is an objective basis for letting him go, then what is it?
ReplyDeletei sometimes get the idea that mr hall has no friggin idea what he is saying or why he is saying it
ReplyDeleteThank you, anon 7:21. I read this entry several times and kept thinking I was missing something. Is there an allegation that he is unable to perform his job? Or am I just supposed to infer that of course he must be incompetent because is is 90 years old?
ReplyDeleteAttempting to look at the post in the kindest manner possible, maybe Mr. Hall is simply commenting on the oddity of a 90-year-old still working for the federal government.
ReplyDelete