A press release:
WASHINGTON — March 15, 2020 — The coronavirus pandemic has caused the Association of Administrative Law Judges (AALJ) to make the unprecedented demand that the Social Security Administration immediately cancel all hearings in its 163 offices across the U.S. for the next two weeks, and longer if needed, in order to protect Americans. AALJ’s move follows what it sees as weeks of poor decision-making by SSA’s leadership. To date, SSA hasn’t enacted AALJ’s common sense request to have claimants asked if they would like a telephone hearing before they arrive for their hearings or if COVID-19 symptoms are exhibited in the hearing room. AALJ leaders, who represent approximately 1,300 judges who preside in Social Security disability hearings, note that municipal, state and federal courts have canceled their proceedings and the lack of similar action in disability hearings is confounding. AALJ President Judge Melissa McIntosh says, “We can’t understand why Social Security officials are blatantly ignoring public health guidance. Let’s always remember that many claimants in our hearing rooms and offices are senior citizens and report they have compromised immunity; they could be particularly at risk for the coronavirus. As administrative law judges, we take the health and safety of the claimants, representatives and our colleagues very seriously. Because of the Agency’s failed response, the only way to ensure the safety of the American public is to cancel hearings for a limited period of time.” The latest details about coronavirus are available at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website at www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html.
Why would it be appropriate to stop holding hearings but not close hearing offices? Why the concern about protecting ALJs from claimants? Shouldn’t ALJs be more worried about the staff in their own offices? If you think that claimants are dirty people who will make you sick but the nice people you work with aren’t a threat you don’t understand the situation. ALJs have much less physical separation from hearing office staff than from claimants.
This doesn’t come across to me quite the way the ALJ union might like and, no, I don’t think that protecting claimants is really what the union is concerned about. The hearing offices and field offices may have to be shut down altogether soon but I don’t think that merely stopping hearings is much use. Social Security hearing rooms don’t have anything like the foot traffic of a general courtroom or a Social Security field office, for that matter. If anything, I would say that Supreme Court justices face a greater threat from other justices and attorneys than Social Security ALJs and the Supreme Court isn’t shutting down oral arguments even though many of the justices are at serious risk due to age.
