Why does ALJ Haack take three hour for a Social Security hearing when other ALJs can do the job in half an hour?
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To: Linda Haack, ALJ
The ALJ determines the subject and scope of claimants' and witnesses' testimony,
and how and when they will testify at the hearing (e.g., the ALJ may decide to use the question and answer method or allow the claimant or witness to testify in his or her own way)
You thus have no authority for me or my colleagues to rearrange your file as to priority of documents and to leave the room with no word for ten minutes leaving the representative, the vocational expert, my client and the medical expert waiting without any way of knowing why you have left and when you will be back.
You also have no power to attempt to drive a wedge between claimant’s chosen representative and claimant and to punitively order myself out of the hearing room to find the alleged onset date in the file when it is in your file on your desk before you. Indeed, as I have warned you before, it is an ethics violation for a government lawyer, such as yourself, to urge a party to give up a constitutional right. Furthermore, the United States Supreme Court has stated that any action by the government to block a person from their chosen representative raises the violation to Constitutional dimensions. By attempting to discredit claimants’ attorney in this manner and by other demeaning tactics, you are acting unethically and in violation of the US Constitution. (I am informed that you also ordered Representative Schneider out of your courtroom to rearrange your file and also delayed the hearing there as well.)
You are an administrative law judge of the facts of the case to those people who are parties to the matter and to those subjects that are listed on the Notice. You are not the training officer for the Social Security Administration for representatives. You have no authority for doing what you routinely do. If you wish to punish representatives for violations that you believe have occurred (even though you have no such authority) then simply write them a note, meet with them after or before the hearing. Do not punish these desperate claimants by keeping your work production to about half of the minimum acceptable by the Chief Judge and driving a wedge between their chosen reps and the claimants. You can also write a letter to the Office of Trial Counsel of SSA or the claimant’s bar association disciplinary department. You have no authority to punish representatives or attempt to embarrass them in front of their clients as you routinely attempt to do.
As a social security claimant’s representative I am very concerned about the health of my claimants. I have had 14 clients die waiting for a hearing. Mr. Richard Sly has been quoted in the Oregonian as stating that he has had 15 clients die waiting for a hearing.
The Chief Judge Christaudo, when testifying before the House Ways and Means Committee, subcommittee on Social Security has singled out the Portland ODAR as having an unacceptable backlog to the point where he has had to open a “judge center” in New Mexico to cover your backlog. Your Chief Judge states that is reasonable that ALJs produce 500 to 700 defensible cases per year. You have a staff of approximately 50 support people to aid you. You have been assigned a full time paralegal to do your paperwork. You have a stable of attorneys who write your decisions.
But all of your Salem cases have been transferred to the Eugene ODAR because of your failure to meet your work expectations by the agency.
According to the figures provided by SSA, you produce barely HALF of the minimum number of cases per year (or around 300 when the minimum is 500 and the average should be 600). I am told by representatives in other parts of the country that Portland has a reputation across the United States with representatives and social security employees for being “slow” with many reps urging their clients to move away from Portland just to get away from you and other slow ALJs to get a different ALJ in another ODAR.
I am being scheduled judges who are handling the cases you failed to adjudicate in a humane/timely matter. The judge is scheduling up to 6 hearings a day to work through your backlog; he in New Mexico, me and my client a few steps away from you talking to him via video in Portland.
Therefore, I would hope in the future that the hearings could be devoid of the drawn out drama you create, you would not act ultra vires and you would stick to your stated duties and the duties as outline in the Notice of Hearing and not to attempt to intimidate representatives or go off on a frolic of your own to invent new duties for representatives that you are not authorized to conjure up.
These actions by you cause what should be a one hour hearing to turn into a three hour hearing. (a three hour tour)
Forgoing these tactics will permit social security employees and social security representatives to serve these desperate social security claimants better in the future. A day doesn’t go by where I don’t get at least 5 desperate phone calls from clients telling me that they are losing their home, do not have food, their spouse is leaving them and/or they are in deep and excruciating pain because they cannot afford medication etc.
Again, if you are not able to perform as the other administrative law judges throughout the United States, meet the goals set by your Chief Administrative Law judge, refrain from your ultra vires punitive actions and continue to delay the tax benefits my clients have paid for when they paid disability payments their whole life long, then I would ask that you recuse yourself from all of my cases in the future.
signed, Daniel A. Bernath, Attorney at Law