Stay Granted In Steigerwald Class Action

     The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has given Social Security a stay in the Steigerwald v. Saul class action lawsuit.

     Steigerwald has to do with the computation of benefits to which a claimant is entitled in a case where Disability Insurance Benefits (DIB) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) are both approved and the claimant is represented. To oversimplify, the needs based SSI benefits are supposed to be reduced because of the DIB payments. However, a represented claimant does not receive the entire DIB payment because some of it is used to pay the attorney. Should the SSI benefits be reduced by money the claimant never sees because it's used to pay the attorney? The answer is no but Social Security had been failing to do it that way which led to the class action lawsuit.

     The District Court had given Social Security only until September 25, 2019 to do the redeterminations. The Court of Appeals has given Social Security two years. 

     My opinion is that while the September 25, 2019 date was unrealistic, two years is way too long. Social Security should have known that it was going to lose Steigerwald from the day it was filed some two years ago. They had already lost another class action on this issue many years ago. Social Security should have gotten going far earlier. Foot dragging shouldn't be rewarded.

National Stagger Walk Case

     One of my firm’s legal assistants e-mailed me yesterday afternoon with a question. She had been on the phone with a Social Security employee inquiring about a delay in benefit payment to a client. She had been told that it was a “national stagger walk case.” She wanted to know what that was. It took me a few minutes but I eventually figured out that she must have misunderstood what had been said, that the Social Security employee must have been referring to the Steigerwald v. Berryhill class action on computation of SSI back benefits when the claimant had been represented and there was also a Disability Insurance Benefits claim.  I think I need to get out some information about Steigerwald to the legal assistants at my firm.

     This raises the question: What is going on now with Steigerwald at Social Security? Have they conceded that they’ll have to make the recomputations? How do they plan to do it? How much disruption will this cause?

Class Action May Create Big Workload For Social Security

     The United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio has entered a decision in favor of the Plaintiffs in the Steigerwald v. Berryhill class action. The case has to do with the computation of benefits to which a claimant is entitled in a case where both Disability Insurance Benefits (DIB) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) are both approved and the claimant is represented. To oversimplify, the needs based SSI benefits are supposed to be reduced because of the DIB payments. However, a represented claimant does not receive the entire DIB payment because some of it is used to pay the attorney. Should the SSI benefits be reduced by money the claimant never sees because it's used to pay the attorney? The Court held that the answer is no. 

     If they can't get this reversed, and I doubt they will, Social Security is going to have to do a lot of recomputations. This isn't computerized. It's all manual. This will be a nightmare for an agency as shorthanded as Social Security is.

     We'll see but I guess that Social Security will appeal, not because they think they can win on appeal, but to stall. I get the impression that there's a lot of stalling going on at Social Security. Everything is being put off until there's a confirmed Commissioner. Maybe they can stall this one until the agency gets better funding.