Richard A. Posner
Richard A. Posner

Administrative law judges chose the wrong battleground to fight what they describe as a production quota imposed by the Social Security Administration, a federal appeals court has ruled.

The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined to revive a lawsuit accusing the agency of interfering with ALJs’ independence by requiring them to decide at least 500 claims for disability benefits each year.

The court held the plaintiffs — the union that represents the Social Security Administration’s judges and three ALJs — do not have a claim under the Administrative Procedure Act.

Instead, the court's majority wrote, the plaintiffs’ only recourse is under the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978.

Still, the majority likened the situation to that of an assembly-line worker.

“If he is a worker on a poultry-processing assembly line and the conveyor belt that carries the chickens to his work station for deboning is speeded up, he will spend less time deboning each chicken than he might think desirable to make sure no bits of bone are left in the chicken when it leaves his work station on the conveyor belt,” Judge Richard A. Posner wrote.

“In other words, the quality of his output would decline.”

But that does not mean the worker can complain that his or her decisional independence is being compromised, he wrote.

The 1978 reform act replaced judicial review of personnel practices taken against federal employees with a set of administrative procedures.

Under the act, personnel practices include any “significant change in duties, responsibilities or working conditions.”

The quota imposed on the Social Security Administration’s ALJs, the 7th Circuit majority wrote, is a personnel practice.

“Increasing an employee’s production quota changes his or her duties and responsibilities, and therefore working conditions,” Posner wrote in Friday’s opinion joined by Judge Michael S. Kanne.

The majority affirmed a decision by U.S. District Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman to dismiss the suit for lack of jurisdiction.

Judge Kenneth F. Ripple agreed with the result in a concurring opinion.

In a suit filed in 2013, the plaintiffs alleged the Social Security Administration’s senior management has made ALJs the scapegoats for delays in the resolution of claims for disability benefits.

The delays stem from a growing workload — which, in turn, is the result of an aging population and high unemployment — and a lack of resources, the suit alleged.

Senior management addressed the problem, the suit alleged, by imposing an arbitrary and illegal production quota on ALJs.

The quota prevents ALJs from carefully considering the merits of the claims before them, the suit alleged.

And the quota prompts ALJs to grant more claims than they would in other circumstances, the suit contended. Benefits awards cannot be appealed and therefore are not subject to the same scrutiny as denials, which can be appealed.

Plaintiffs included the Association of Administrative Law Judges, Judicial Council 1, which represents more than 1,200 ALJs who adjudicate cases for the Social Security Administration.

Another plaintiff was Administrative Law Judge Cynthia Miles Bretthauer, who serves in the Evanston hearing office.

Other plaintiffs were Administrative Law Judges Robin L. Henrie and Gilbert A. Martinez, who both serve in the Salt Lake City hearing office.

Named as the defendant was Carolyn W. Colvin, the Social Security Administration's acting commissioner.

In its opinion, the 7th Circuit’s majority wrote that the plaintiffs would not prevail under the 1978 reform act.

While an increase in a production quota is a personnel action, the majority wrote, it is not prohibited unless it constitutes discrimination or some other practice barred under the statute.

And the goal of the production quota for ALJs, it wrote, “is to speed up decision-making rather than to prod administrative law judges to grant more applications for disability benefits.”

While agreeing that the ALJs do not have a remedy in court, Ripple warned that the importance of the role they play should not be ignored.

“Officials charged with the responsibility ‘to get the job done’ must devise methods and measures for achieving that goal,” he wrote in his opinion. “Devising such tools always requires, however, balancing considerations of efficiency with respect for the core functions of the governmental unit involved — here the adjudication of cases.”

The case is Association of Administrative Law Judges, Judicial Council No. 1, IFPTE, AFL-CIO & CLC, et al. v. Carolyn W. Colvin, No. 14-1953.

Marilyn Zahm, executive vice president of the Association of Administrative Law Judges, argued the case before the 7th Circuit on behalf of the plaintiffs. She is an ALJ with the Social Security Administration in Buffalo, N.Y.

Melissa N. Patterson of the U.S. Justice Department in Washington, D.C., argued the case on behalf of Colvin.

Lawyers in the case could not be reached for comment.