Post by Propmaster on Feb 22, 2016 10:51:02 GMT -5
APA mandated due process applies in SSA disability cases to the system under which aggrieved individual claimants can seek redress for the denial of certain benefit entitlement rights. More often than not, non-disability appeals involve the loss of a property or entitlement right previously bestowed on an individual. Moreover, the vast majority of such individuals appear unrepresented due to the usual absence of potential past due benefits being available for a representative. Now SSA wants to turn over this original appeals process to less protected AALJs (AJ like decision makers). An article III judge somewhere is going to see the possible harm to due process for such folks real fast, especially when the agency already protests many favorable ALJ OP waiver and other non-disability decisions with the AC. SSA is playing with real combustible fire with this issue and risks a political firestorm from both sides of the political aisle. Limiting due process rights of unrepresented folks is about the only thing both political parties can now agree upon. Think about it. SSA wants to eliminate a face to face hearing for folks getting benefits taken away and substitute a decision of a less protected AJ located in Washington DC. I have worked with just about every kind of non-disability appeal over the years. Trust me when I say the agency doesn't know what it is doing in 85% of such cases at the initial and reconsideration determinations, especially in SSI case issues. Their grand experiment will be enjoined in some USDC following a class action filing because the perception will be that vulnerable citizens are being railroaded by an agency hell bent on reducing due process rights of the aggrieved. Even if the reality is different, the perception will rule the day.
+1
Many years ago, when the legal aid at which I worked was considered "litigious," OGC appointed an ombudsman who we could contact before filing writs of mandamus and so forth. Early in our time working together, I explained and gave documentation to this ombudsman regarding a client whose underpayment had simply not been correctly paid. The ALJ had made 4 decisions on the claim in a 2-month period (complicated post-entitlement issues including representative payee fraud with agency negligence in the appointment) and the situation was, in fact, confusing. However, with a narrative of the sequence of events, copies of the decisions, and computations, the ombudsman was able to follow it just fine.
I received a call a week or so later from a very frustrated ombudsman at OGC who not only could not find a person who could understand what was wrong, but could not find a person willing to accept responsibility for doing anything about it. She commiserated with the apparent experience of trying to do anything unusual with the agency.
Which describes almost every non-disability, post-entitlement claim with nuances.