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Post by x on Sept 17, 2020 12:52:51 GMT -5
For obvious reasons, ALJs of the Mobile, AL SSA hrg ofc were unable to conduct their 27 scheduled hearings today. Emails went out nationally seeking volunteers to cover. Within minutes, all hearings were covered, and there were not enough cases to go around for all of the ALJs who volunteered.
These ALJs volunteered (as always) to provide, on no notice, due process hearings involving complex physical, mental and vocational issues documented in hundreds or thousands of pages of records -- in addition to their existing caseloads.
These ALJs are undeterred by management that seeks to destroy their union and obsolete them as independent adjudicators.
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Post by ssaogc on Sept 17, 2020 17:21:52 GMT -5
For obvious reasons, ALJs of the Mobile, AL SSA hrg ofc were unable to conduct their 27 scheduled hearings today. Emails went out nationally seeking volunteers to cover. Within minutes, all hearings were covered, and there were not enough cases to go around for all of the ALJs who volunteered. These ALJs volunteered (as always) to provide, on no notice, due process hearings involving complex physical, mental and vocational issues documented in hundreds or thousands of pages of records -- in addition to their existing caseloads. These ALJs are undeterred by management that seeks to destroy their union and obsolete them as independent adjudicators. The Agency does not care and will not even acknowledge this professionalism. In fact, they have limited the union to such few emails that the union cannot even circulate the useless transfer register that has not been used in two or more years Via SSA email. |
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Post by nylawyer on Sept 17, 2020 18:53:17 GMT -5
Glad to hear they weren't expected to hold hearings from the hotel rooms they had fled to.
I fear somewhere in the higher reaches of management there exists a man who focused not on the fact that so many who volunteered, but on the fact that they had to solicit volunteers in the first place, rather than just commanding who did what.
Having said all that- wouldn't you think those claimants and reps would want the hearings cancelled?
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Sept 18, 2020 9:36:37 GMT -5
For obvious reasons, ALJs of the Mobile, AL SSA hrg ofc were unable to conduct their 27 scheduled hearings today. Emails went out nationally seeking volunteers to cover. Within minutes, all hearings were covered, and there were not enough cases to go around for all of the ALJs who volunteered. These ALJs volunteered (as always) to provide, on no notice, due process hearings involving complex physical, mental and vocational issues documented in hundreds or thousands of pages of records -- in addition to their existing caseloads. These ALJs are undeterred by management that seeks to destroy their union and obsolete them as independent adjudicators. The Agency does not care and will not even acknowledge this professionalism. In fact, they have limited the union to such few emails that the union cannot even circulate the useless transfer register that has not been used in two or more years Via SSA email. What limitations on union emails are you referring to? |
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Post by lurkerbelow on Sept 18, 2020 10:24:11 GMT -5
Glad to hear they weren't expected to hold hearings from the hotel rooms they had fled to. I fear somewhere in the higher reaches of management there exists a man who focused not on the fact that so many who volunteered, but on the fact that they had to solicit volunteers in the first place, rather than just commanding who did what. Having said all that- wouldn't you think those claimants and reps would want the hearings cancelled? In a perfect world this would be up to the claimant, and this would be an A3 case rather than SSA ALJ. |
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Post by nappyloxs on Sept 19, 2020 11:25:45 GMT -5
Glad to hear they weren't expected to hold hearings from the hotel rooms they had fled to. I fear somewhere in the higher reaches of management there exists a man who focused not on the fact that so many who volunteered, but on the fact that they had to solicit volunteers in the first place, rather than just commanding who did what. Having said all that- wouldn't you think those claimants and reps would want the hearings cancelled? That was my first thoughts too. ALJ didn’t have to hold hearings, but claimants had to attend or else they would be issued a NTSC. Granted, it depends if the claimants were located in the area. Anyways, kudos to all the ALJs who volunteered. |
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Post by rov on Sept 21, 2020 9:40:55 GMT -5
Although I understand the reasons for covering other ALJ's hearings, I question whether we are actually providing due process to claimants by covering, on no notice, hearings involving complex physical, mental and vocational issues documented in hundreds or thousands of pages of records. I am also not convinced of the wisdom of doing so with the importance of accuracy at this level for both the claimants and the Social Security Trust Fund.
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Post by superalj on Sept 21, 2020 17:05:06 GMT -5
Although I understand the reasons for covering other ALJ's hearings, I question whether we are actually providing due process to claimants by covering, on no notice, hearings involving complex physical, mental and vocational issues documented in hundreds or thousands of pages of records. I am also not convinced of the wisdom of doing so with the importance of accuracy at this level for both the claimants and the Social Security Trust Fund. The cases are from Alabama so I think it’s a more than reasonable assumption that those files are generally sparse with CEs and a few emergency department visits. Regardless, I’m sure the claimant would rather have a hearing than a postponement and for the bigger files, a closer review can be done post hearing. |
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Post by happy on Sept 22, 2020 10:54:36 GMT -5
Having said all that- wouldn't you think those claimants and reps would want the hearings cancelled? That was my first thoughts too. ALJ didn’t have to hold hearings, but claimants had to attend or else they would be issued a NTSC. Granted, it depends if the claimants were located in the area. Anyways, kudos to all the ALJs who volunteered.
In my opinion, it's a non-issue. I don't think any ALJ professional enough to volunteer to pick up those cases would be likely to try to dismiss under these circumstances anyway, but it doesn't matter one way or another if NTSCs were issued.
(1) We can't dismiss anything right now unless we complied with the secondary contact required by HALLEX and, since the Agency turned off the automated Reminder notice, few cases meet that standard. Most of my "no shows" involve multiple unsuccessful attempts to re-contact unrepped claimants by phone and leaving a voicemail is insufficient to meet the contact requirement. A NTSC cannot cure the HALLEX defect. (2) Given the guidance recently issued, any dismissal of a case for abandonment where the claimant responds to an NTSC that he/she was displaced due to a hurricane would likely come screaming back from the AC for abuse of discretion, even if there's no real explanation for not being available by telephone. The "flexible and compassionate" standard still applies, even to repped cases. In the aftermath of a hurricane, mail is always an issue, so all a nonresponsive claimant would need to do is assert on appeal that they never received the NTSC.
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Post by superalj on Sept 22, 2020 12:59:08 GMT -5
What about the “whereabouts unknown” dismissal? There are some claimants that just don’t care about their claim bc they moved on and don’t want to be bothered. If all the location queries have been done and the claimant can’t be found, dismiss? Obviously, in the unlikely event it’s appealed or even the most legally sufficient, Hallex compliant dismissal is appealed, the AC will send it back for some bush league reason anyway.
While totally not office topic since the thread is professionalism (well not AAJ) anyone notice the increase in the really technical and “bush league” remands lately?
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Post by nylawyer on Sept 22, 2020 13:28:22 GMT -5
What about the “whereabouts unknown” dismissal? There are some claimants that just don’t care about their claim bc they moved on and don’t want to be bothered. If all the location queries have been done and the claimant can’t be found, dismiss? Obviously, in the unlikely event it’s appealed or even the most legally sufficient, Hallex compliant dismissal is appealed, the AC will send it back for some bush league reason anyway. While totally not office topic since the thread is professionalism (well not AAJ) anyone notice the increase in the really technical and “bush league” remands lately? Just saw one for a represented claimant that was sent back because the claimant mentioned ER visits in his testimony and the ALJ never attempted to order the records. Again, for a represented claimant. (Makes a pretty huge mockery of the 5 day rule- so if a rep submits evidence less than 5 days prior to the hearing I can ignore it, but if they just don't bother ordering it at all then I have to go find it?) |
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Post by lurkerbelow on Sept 22, 2020 15:54:51 GMT -5
What about the “whereabouts unknown” dismissal? There are some claimants that just don’t care about their claim bc they moved on and don’t want to be bothered. If all the location queries have been done and the claimant can’t be found, dismiss? Obviously, in the unlikely event it’s appealed or even the most legally sufficient, Hallex compliant dismissal is appealed, the AC will send it back for some bush league reason anyway. While totally not office topic since the thread is professionalism (well not AAJ) anyone notice the increase in the really technical and “bush league” remands lately? It's happening at the initial hearing as well, just through QA. I've probably gotten five, six sheets with information on exactly how my drafting did not comply with...well, something that I'm sure sounded good when it was written. Bush leagues is a good word for it. Head scratcher is another. |
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Synik
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Post by Synik on Sept 22, 2020 17:08:54 GMT -5
What about the “whereabouts unknown” dismissal? There are some claimants that just don’t care about their claim bc they moved on and don’t want to be bothered. If all the location queries have been done and the claimant can’t be found, dismiss?
For the UTL (unable to locate) claimants, we still cannot dismiss until they turn the automated Reminders back on. I confirmed last week that I cannot send a Reminder manually because they are changing the notice language. If no Acknowledgment is received and we don't actually reach the claimant by telephone, we're stuck like Chuck for the time being.
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Post by nappyloxs on Sept 22, 2020 23:26:07 GMT -5
That was my first thoughts too. ALJ didn’t have to hold hearings, but claimants had to attend or else they would be issued a NTSC. Granted, it depends if the claimants were located in the area. Anyways, kudos to all the ALJs who volunteered.
In my opinion, it's a non-issue. I don't think any ALJ professional enough to volunteer to pick up those cases would be likely to try to dismiss under these circumstances anyway, but it doesn't matter one way or another if NTSCs were issued.
(1) We can't dismiss anything right now unless we complied with the secondary contact required by HALLEX and, since the Agency turned off the automated Reminder notice, few cases meet that standard. Most of my "no shows" involve multiple unsuccessful attempts to re-contact unrepped claimants by phone and leaving a voicemail is insufficient to meet the contact requirement. A NTSC cannot cure the HALLEX defect. (2) Given the guidance recently issued, any dismissal of a case for abandonment where the claimant responds to an NTSC that he/she was displaced due to a hurricane would likely come screaming back from the AC for abuse of discretion, even if there's no real explanation for not being available by telephone. The "flexible and compassionate" standard still applies, even to repped cases. In the aftermath of a hurricane, mail is always an issue, so all a nonresponsive claimant would need to do is assert on appeal that they never received the NTSC.
The last sentence says it all. Claimants may not even get the NTSC, because of mailing problems and then must appeal. Instead of a possible 6 month delay for another hearing, now they have 2+ year delay. Plus, what prevents these ALJs from holding hearings, but not the claimants from attending if they were also in the hurricane’s path? If anything, they had more problems with the hurricane than ALJs. Personally, I have had to deal with weather issues and office refusing to close, which were absolute nonsense. Entire city gov’t shutdown, city officials told people to stay off the roads, public transportation basically shutdown by the delays. I even saw multiple buses stuck on the road while driving in. Several other fed agencies closed, including immigration court. Yet, not SSA OHO. We were open for business as usual despite the fact that it put judges, employees, claimants, reps, and contractors lives in jeopardy. I still give kudos to judges who volunteer and believe none of them would even issue a NTSC for the apparent reason. Still, these cases could easily be rescheduled with any office if they were going to transfer them anyways. |
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Post by nappyloxs on Sept 22, 2020 23:39:10 GMT -5
What about the “whereabouts unknown” dismissal? There are some claimants that just don’t care about their claim bc they moved on and don’t want to be bothered. If all the location queries have been done and the claimant can’t be found, dismiss? Obviously, in the unlikely event it’s appealed or even the most legally sufficient, Hallex compliant dismissal is appealed, the AC will send it back for some bush league reason anyway. While totally not office topic since the thread is professionalism (well not AAJ) anyone notice the increase in the really technical and “bush league” remands lately? Can’t speak for all offices, but covid rules don’t address attempting to locate claimant as required. Even before covid, it was an issue. Most unable to locate (UTL) remands, I have seen were cases where we could have found the claimant if we just had looked. Example: claimant reported new address to FO, but we were never notified. The HCSR should have noticed it when running queries. Most UTL remands are cases had the info somewhere. I have seen a few where we really would not have been able to find the new address, but those were rare circumstances and still properly remanded, because of no ones fault. |
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Post by superalj on Sept 23, 2020 10:00:28 GMT -5
So you are saying the AC gets it right in most UTL cases? I disagree and think that no matter how policy compliant we are with dismissals, there is an arbitrariness on the part of the AC to either use hyper technical interpretations of hallex or accept frivolous reasons to remand the dismissal.
I hope that AAJs will see how difficult it is to deal with claimants who do not keep us updated about their addresses and contact information while showing little if no interest in their claims when they start hearing cases. What will they do? Just keep rescheduling the cases over and over? Will management email them when the cases become aged or have too many postponements? Lastly, why is the national agreement rate for dismissals so low compared to UF decisions? Is that we as an ALJ corps don’t understand the dismissal rules or some other reason?
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Post by nappyloxs on Sept 23, 2020 22:40:13 GMT -5
So you are saying the AC gets it right in most UTL cases? I disagree and think that no matter how policy compliant we are with dismissals, there is an arbitrariness on the part of the AC to either use hyper technical interpretations of hallex or accept frivolous reasons to remand the dismissal. I hope that AAJs will see how difficult it is to deal with claimants who do not keep us updated about their addresses and contact information while showing little if no interest in their claims when they start hearing cases. What will they do? Just keep rescheduling the cases over and over? Will management email them when the cases become aged or have too many postponements? Lastly, why is the national agreement rate for dismissals so low compared to UF decisions? Is that we as an ALJ corps don’t understand the dismissal rules or some other reason? All I am saying is the remands I have seen when I was tasked with looking at remands. I looked at every dismissal remand in the office during a period of time. Most of those remands had new claimant information that could have been found prior to the dismissal. The new information may have been on an 827, new phone number on a form, new address in MER, etc. Only 2-3 of the remands did not have the info available somewhere, but were understandable remands. One was a case where we never will get the claimant’s address. I am not talking about all dismissals, just UTL remands. I agree with that claimants have a burden to update their information. Yet, Hallex and policy requires us to also make an attempt to find updated address information. Have you ever found a claimant disabled, because of the rules when you did not think the claimant was disabled based on the record? I don’t fully understand why judges complain about rescheduling cases. Agency wants judges to schedule 50 cases per month. (Some) judges complain about having to schedule so many cases each and every month. Why worry about a case being rescheduled because we can’t find the claimant? Due process dictates a claimant his or her day in court. Judge gets the scheduling credit, claimant gets his or hers due process. Win-win. Let me put it another way, agency touts that XXX number of hearings have been scheduled since covid. Yet, we all know that a high percentage of those cases were scheduled 2-4 times. Aged cases/# of postponements. SMH. I have seen cases postponed for a rep 3-4 times. That is on the judge. As to UTL, tell mgmt to make sure legal assistants follow policy with regards to locating claimant if it is an issue. Cases only become aged cases because of postponements and the length of time between hearings. You could tell the CSU to stop scheduling 3-6 months out or to make sure to leave openings in your docket for postponements. If I were a judge, I would just reschedule hearings from the bench. It takes 2-3 minutes, especially when judges have to give schedules so far out. Of course I am referring to non-UTL cases. I would give CSU a calendar with 50 hearing slots with 4 or more slots label as reserved per month. What mgmt is going to to say I can’t reschedule my own hearings? As long as I schedule those slots, it shouldn’t be a problem. Idk if I should comment on your last questions. Yes, no, maybe, and more to those answers. People are going to take shortcuts when they are given quotes to meet. |
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Post by steelrain on Sept 24, 2020 9:14:59 GMT -5
What about the hidden cost of these constant rescheduling of cases. If a case is constantly being scheduled and rescheduled 3-4 times. That is over $400 in just VE fees alone (tag on mailing costs, ME fees if applicable and VHR costs in the preCOVID times).
If there were a 1,000 of these types of cases nationwide (the real number could x5 or x10) we are looking at over $400,000 in wasted taxpayer money.
Seems pretty expensive for cases where the claimant has failed to either keep SSA notified or has gone back to work.
Waste of time and money.
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Post by bowser on Sept 24, 2020 9:32:06 GMT -5
What about the hidden cost of these constant rescheduling of cases. ... Waste of time and money. Of course, but in these - and many other instances - I long ago realized that economy (of $ or other resources - including my time and effort), is about as low as imaginable among the interests of TPTB. One of MANY things in which they claim to be interested, but rarely act upon. The presumption that all/most/many claimants are among the most needy and vulnerable, precludes acknowledging that some specific individuals are uncooperative, less than forthcoming, flat-out dishonest, manipulative, etc. |
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Post by christina on Sept 24, 2020 11:48:25 GMT -5
Glad to hear they weren't expected to hold hearings from the hotel rooms they had fled to. I fear somewhere in the higher reaches of management there exists a man who focused not on the fact that so many who volunteered, but on the fact that they had to solicit volunteers in the first place, rather than just commanding who did what. Having said all that- wouldn't you think those claimants and reps would want the hearings cancelled? That was my first thoughts too. ALJ didn’t have to hold hearings, but claimants had to attend or else they would be issued a NTSC. Granted, it depends if the claimants were located in the area. Anyways, kudos to all the ALJs who volunteered. I assume we’d be super liberal on granting continuances in this situation |
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