From a
report by Social Security's Office of Inspector General (OIG) (footnotes omitted):
Claimants and their advocates or representatives may file a complaint against an ALJ [Administrative Law Judge] if they believe the ALJ was biased or engaged in improper conduct. ... The Division of Quality Service (DQS), within ODAR’s [Office of Disability Adjudication and Review's] Office of Executive Operations and Human Resources, reviews and resolves these complaints with the assistance of ODAR’s RO [Regional Office] staff, as appropriate. At the time of our review, DQS had assigned approximately 12 employees, including 2branch chiefs and permanent and detailed staff, to handle ALJ complaints ...
DQS closed 1,490 ALJ misconduct complaint cases in Fiscal Year (FY) 2011. ... [W]e determined the median times for various processing time frames in FY2011.
- The overall ODAR processing time, from the ALJ hearing to the closing of the complaint, was about 894 days since the AC needed to process the majority of the cases before DQS could initiate its own review.
- DQS processing time was about 400 days.
- RO processing time, a subset of DQS processing time, was about 201 days....
Of the complaints closed in FY 2011, DQS substantiated 4 percent. DQS closed approximately 11 percent of the cases because the ALJ left SSA before DQS completed a full review of the complaint. About 5 percent of the decision fields was left blank in the system. DQS determined the remaining 80 percent of the cases were unsubstantiated....
SSA established the DQS process to ensure “Every complaint will be reviewed or investigated in a timely manner by an official who was not involved in the alleged improper conduct.” [According to the notice published in the Federal Register at the time the system was established] ...
DQS management told us the Agency had not established time frames for reviewing and resolving complaints at every stage. However, during our review period, a DQS manager told us her office created its first report showing the age of pending complaints for internal use by DQS managers. In addition, this manager explained that DQS started tracking cases that were 1-year-old or older from the time DQS received them. DQS established a goal to close 60 percent of the year-old cases by the end of FY 2013. ...
[W]e reviewed one case DQS closed because the ALJ had retired. The ALJ held a hearing with the claimant in August 2007, and on December 2010 (3 years later), DQS closed the complaint before fully investigating the allegation because the ALJ had retired. We reviewed another case where 22 closed complaints related to 1 ALJ were labeled as ALJ No Longer With Agency after the ALJ was removed from the Agency because of improper behavior.
Certainly many of the complaints lack merit. Others are legitimate complaints but concern an isolated instance of bad judgment by an otherwise good ALJ. Still, there is a small minority, perhaps 1-2% of ALJs, who are just bad ALJs, some of them ALJs who suffer from serious psychiatric problems, some of them ALJs who suffer from serious character flaws, but all of them people who are just in the wrong line of work. This is not a functional system of dealing with complaints about ALJ misconduct. It takes far, far too long. Nothing is done for years and years about ALJs who are well known to be causing serious problems. Mostly, the agency just waits for the bad ALJs to retire. Not only do claimants and their attorneys deserve better, the vast majority of ALJs who do a good job deserve better than to be lumped in with these bad apples.
Well, if the ALJ Union is anything like the Union for field workers, it will take an "act of God" to get rid of them. I've seen it takes years to get rid of someone in the field.
ReplyDeletePerhaps if 98%-99% percent were not legitimate complaints, the investigation of legitimate ones weould move faster and the system would be more effective. It is just like the Appeals Council. It is so easy to file an Appeal that everyone does it, whether or not they have a good reason. to someone that is not disabled, this is just a game and they have nothing to lose. Such people slow down the process for legitimate disabled claimants. Reps that will take on anyone that walks in teh door encourage this craziness.
ReplyDeleteThis will never happen because SSA has little interest in disciplining representatives, but one way to reduce the vast majority of frivolous complaints would be to sanction the representatives that file them. The fewer frivolous complaints, the faster SSA can address the meritious complaints.
ReplyDeleteIt's really no better in the real world of law practice, i.e., the state court system. Biggest difference is the public nature of the screw-ups that occur in state courts. Still, even if the public objects to a judge's actions, it can take years for a state disciplinary board to take appropriate action.
ReplyDeleteMy experience is that there is only a small percentage of ALJs with serious and recurring bias or misconduct issues. However, the harm those few can wreak on the lives of the claimants that appear before them is considerable.
ReplyDeleteJudging from the report, what appears to be broken is SSA's ability to step in quickly and stop those few really bad ALJs from harming the claimants who appear before them. Even in confirmed cases of bias and misconduct, SSA only administered the mildest of slaps on the wrist to the offenders, usually years after the offenses occurred.