"Outliers" beware: Follow up to the WSJ article.

[Gaidin]

Nov 29, 2013 0:30:04 GMT -5 mcb said:

Nov 27, 2013 18:13:00 GMT -5 moopigsdad said:

It is my understanding he is still on administrative leave and has sued the HOCALJ of his office and the Commissioner to get his position back. The case is pending decision in the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals. He supposedly hasn't worked as an ALJ since 2012. I don't condone his pay rate or some of his actions, but I was curious as to what occurred, since I knew him back in the early 1990's.

I don't know how he would've signed off on 20 decisions last month without returning to work.

I agree MCB.  It also looks like he is still paying almost everything.

[christina]

I hope there will eventually be an emphasis on ALJ's who deny and/or dismiss most of their cases too.

[bartleby]

Why would you hold dismissals against a Judge?? If they show up they get a hearing??

[christina]

appropriate dismissals are fine, if anything, in my opinion, the agency makes some silly remands on dismissals. if someone can not show up for a hearing, they'd best have a very, dare I say, d... good reason for missing it. I am more concerned about arguably good cause dismissals where a judge would rather dismiss a case than allow a person to visit a close relative who had a MVA hours before a hearing with bad injuries, a claimant is afraid of travelling on icy roads, etc. My criticism was more aimed that if there are judges with unusually high dismissal rates or very low rates on finding people disabled, I am concerned on those issues too, esp if a judge exhibits a high combo of both. I am generally in favor of staying out of the ALJ's way if it is within their discretion but feel like the current interest in the FF outliers is out of balance as it is not the sole problem with the agency and it seems to me, could interfere with how judges decide cases, which if I am right, is not cool at all. i am personally grateful ALJ's are covered under the APA based on how the agency seems to be going.

[christina]

And I am not saying that the current direction the agency is going can or will interfere with how judges decide cases. As noted above, i am very glad the APA is in place and hope the agency will not meddle or attempt to meddle too much in any ALJ's independence. From what I have seen, many ALJ's will jealously guard their independence as a judge and I consider that a very appropriate stance to take.

[bartleby]

I routinely have a 25% dismissal rate and it bothers me. I have prepared for these hearings and this is a waste of my preparation time and a valuable hearing slot. I have no control on it and it drives me crazy.. Any dumb excuse the claimant gives the AC and here we go again. Of course the cessation cases that are still receiving benefits have no incentive to ever show up..

[christina]

Agreed Bartleby and I was more thinking of what i hope is only a hypothetical ALJ with a 75 percent dismissal rate. that to me is a red flag something is wrong (and even more so if most of their nondismissed cases were denials) and I would hope the agency would informally be looking those cases over. i too would be frustrated at people who don't show up for hearings when i and others had prepped their case, esp if the real reason was they were at a shoe sale. and yeah, I've seen some remands on dismissals that would drive any ALJ up a wall :/ I get frustrated too but it;s worse on the judge.

[southerner]

My DISM rate is around 22%. That falls within the range for my office (18-25%). It does annoy me when AC remands and substitutes its opinion as to what constitutes good cause or a good reason, but that's the way it is.

[christina]

and I feel our rules on dismissals in Hallex are over protectively to claimants. I am very much for giving a claimant slack when then is good cause present and also for leaving these issues genreally to the deciding ALJ but some of our rules are outright silly. As long as the wait is, how can a claimant not figure out to show up to a hearing? and if they move, get in touch with the agency with a COA.. is it that hard?

[deltajudge]

8-)Look at all the trouble gone through just getting the case ready to schedule, then mailing the notice with the return request if they will appear. I dismissed all non-represented no-shows without the show cause crap, funny that a lot of them had no trouble receiving the dismissal order.

[bowser]

Wow - 20-25% dismissals? I'm around 15%, and thought I was a hard case! You guys have that many no-shows and late filers? Curious, the way cases are different in different jurisdictions...

ISTM that if they are going to use dismissal remand rates as an element of assessing an ALJ's job performance, then they ought to give ALJs better guidance as to how to exercise their discretion. Last year we had OCEP training on dismissals. They did a pretty good job of saying that it is a matter of the ALJ's discretion, but gave ABSOLUTELY NO GUIDANCE as to how the ALJ ought to exercise their discretion.

In past years I tended to dismiss a good percentage of cases where the claimant just presented a transportation excuse the day of hearing or in response to a Show Cause. After getting a bunch of those sent back to me - and learning that the Agency was tracking such things, I started giving a lot more folk one free pass.

If the Agency WANTS every claimant to have one free pass for whatever reason, it would be a simple thing for them to instruct the ALJs as much. But if they actually wish ALJs to exercise their discretion, then it seems inappropriate for them to second-guess a judge's responsible exercise of that discretion - and then hold that against the judge.