The Association of Administrative Law Judges, a labor union that represents Social Security's Administrative Law Judges (ALJs), brought suit in federal court over the agency's productivity guidelines. They had no success at the District Court level. Apparently, things didn't go any better at oral arguments before the Court of Appeals. The panel they drew included Judge Posner.
6 comments:
I wonder if the Issa committee report, Misplaced Priorities: How the Social Security Administration Sacrificed Quality for Quantity in the Disability Determination Process, issued after oral argument, will-or should-have an impact. It's probably not in the record, but Posner does not hesitate to scour the Internet when writing decisions.
Posner can barely contain himself; often chuckling at the inane attempts by the ALJS’ counsel to state SSA is forcing allowances by asking judges to work “harder”, 500 instead of 400 cases a year. The ALJs attorney fails to note that they have decision writers and apparently all the time in the world to issue a decision. The outliers, high producers I see are sitting on the cases for 4-6 months. She also says the quota results in more allowances as if the last two years of diminished allowances by all adjudicators was not well documented. If the job is so hard why are so many attorneys jumping in line to work for SSA. Good judges, and most are, can handle the caseload without claiming SSA wants to deplete the trust fund. The only “action” SSA’s counsel could come up with was emails from supervisors to ALJs. Nobody is going to be fired. It doesn’t matter any way because the Union has no standing. SSA’s counsel was cool and calculated and clearly demonstrated that the union wants to leapfrog the congressional route for complaints.
Ah but what fun to hear an ALJ who was the union’s counsel, get even a little pressure, after years of seeing some judges ( minority and usually the deniers) with nothing but disdain and harassment for claimants and representatives.
anon 4:04
I think you said it well. 500 decisions a year is not particularly burdensome. One can meet that burden without paying 85 percent of cases.
I would note on the ALJs behalf (not an ALJ) that where you are has to make a huge difference. I am aware of some not-so-stellar offices in terms of writer corps, management, workup quality, etc. such that those judges surely must have to work some double-digit percentage more/harder to get the same output. There are some ODAR offices where putting out 500 legally defensible dispositions a year is akin to untying the Gordian knot.
ALJ: "We're being mandated to make favorable decisions"
Posner: "Show me"
ALJ: "Well, I feel that way"
What a bunch of whiney, entitled idiots the ALJs who brought this action are. If they knew the law enough to apply it and write their own decisions I might have empathy, but... There are other ALJs who see this for what it is and are ashamed.
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