RRB Case At Supreme Court May Have Implications For Social Security

     The Supreme Court has agreed to hear Salinas v. Railroad Retirement Board, a case that may have implications for Social Security. Maybe before describing Salinas, I need to make sure everybody knows what the Railroad Retirement Board (RRB) is. RRB is an agency created around the same time as what was then called the Social Security Board. RRB administers some benefits such as unemployment that the Social Security Administration (SSA) does not now administer. However, in most respects the RRB statutes and regulations are almost identical to SSA's. Because it's much smaller, it's almost always RRB that is affected by SSA litigation. Salinas, however, is the exception to that pattern. Here's the stated issue in Salinas:

Whether, under Section 5(f) of the Railroad Unemployment Insurance Act and Section 8 of the Railroad Retirement Act, the Railroad Retirement Board’s denial of a request to reopen a prior benefits determination is a “final decision” subject to judicial review.

     If you're an experienced Social Security attorney that issue should sound familiar. It has come up in Social Security litigation. SSA has argued over the years that a refusal to reopen a prior decision cannot be reviewed in the federal courts because it's not a final decision after a hearing even though the decision is final and even though there was a hearing. That's the argument that RRB has made in Salinas. The recent Supreme Court decision in Smith v. Berryhill suggests that Salinas may have a case.