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Administrative Law Keyed to Cass
Association of Administrative Law Judges v. Heckler
Citation:
594 F. Supp. 1132 (1984)Facts
The Association of Administrative Law Judges brought suit challenging SSA’s Bellmon Review Program, implemented pursuant to the 1980 Bellmon Amendment, which directed the Secretary to resume own motion review of ALJ decisions. Initially, the program targeted 106 ALJs (approximately thirteen percent of all SSA ALJs) with allowance rates of seventy percent or higher for one hundred percent review of their allowance decisions. Congress had expressed concern about high reversal rates of state-level denials and variance among ALJs. The program evolved to target ALJs based on own motion rates rather than allowance rates, and later included review of unappealed denial decisions by high grant-review rate ALJs. Associate Commissioner Louis Hays’ performance plan included goals related to reducing allowance rates, and various agency communications referenced allowance rate “goals” and the need to reduce rates. The program included provisions for feedback, counseling, and potential disciplinary action for ALJs who failed to improve decisional accuracy. By the time of trial, SSA had discontinued the individual ALJ targeting portion of Bellmon Review, replacing it with expanded national random sample review.
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