The Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS), a federal agency that makes recommendations to federal agencies recently did a study about Social Security litigation in the federal courts. Although the study was not too surprising it was disappointing in many respects.
Social Security claimants have the option of appealing unfavorable Social Security decisions to the federal court level after they have gone through the prior steps of the process. This includes an initial medical denial, a medical denial of their first appeal, a medical denial issued by an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) and a denial from the Appeals Council. After going through these steps, which for most people will take more than three years, claimants have the option of appealing the decision in federal court. The ACUS study focuses on this step of the process. We will look at some of the more interesting findings of the study.
- Apparently federal judges know very little about the Social Security disability process before the claims arrive on their desk, which can be a problem considering there is probably about three years worth of a claim by the time a federal judge sees the case.
- The federal judge’s ruling is usually final even if it goes against Social Security. It is estimated that of the roughly 20,000 cases taken to federal court each year that Social Security only appeals about 650 of the decisions.
- The study also looked at the preparation levels of ALJ’s prior to cases that go to federal court. The study concluded that ALJs have a “just in time” approach to reviewing cases for upcoming hearings. This means that ALJs who use this method first look at a case anywhere from one day to one week before the scheduled hearing.
For more details on this report click here.
