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Employment – Public employment

By: WISCONSIN LAW JOURNAL STAFF//January 26, 2015//

Employment – Public employment

By: WISCONSIN LAW JOURNAL STAFF//January 26, 2015//

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U.S. Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit

Civil

Employment – Public employment

The Social Security Administration’s goal that ALJs decide at least 500 cases per year is not actionable under the Administrative Procedure Act.

“We are mindful that the District of Columbia Circuit, in Mahoney v. Donovan, 721 F.3d 633 (D.C. Cir. 2013), went even further, ruling that any action alleged to interfere with an administrative law judge’s decisional independence is a personnel action governed exclusively by the Civil Service Re-form Act even though that Act provides no remedy for personnel actions that interfere—even that intentionally interfere—with decisional independence. That ruling, if sound, would nullify the express protection of such independence in the Administrative Procedure Act. We doubt that it’s sound but need not pursue the issue in this case. The other cases cited in Judge Ripple’s concurring opinion do not involve claims relating to the infringement of decisional independence. But we are mindful of his suggestion that administrative law judges whose decisional independence is interfered with by their superiors might have a constitutional remedy. Although the suggestion opens up a rather frightening vista of constitutional claims by administrative law judges employed by the federal government, of whom some 1400 are employed by the Social Security Administration alone, we can imagine a case in which a change in working conditions could have an unintentional effect on decisional independence so great as to create a serious issue of due process. Suppose that solely for the sake of administrative efficiency the Social Security Administration ordered that disability hearings were to last no more than 15 minutes. The quality of justice meted out by the administrative law judges would be dangerously diminished. But all that matters for the decision of the present case is that the administrative law judges’ remedy under the Administrative Procedure Act for interference with their decisional independence does not ex-tend to the incidental consequences of a bona fide production quota.

Affirmed.

14-1953 Association of Administrative Law Judges v. Colvin

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Coleman, J., Posner, J.

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