Administrative Law Judges (ALJs) play an important role in the Social Security Administration (SSA) as they hear appeals from individuals who have been denied Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) benefits. As a result, the decisions of these judges have important effects on both individual welfare and government finances, especially given that the SSDI trust fund is expected to go bankrupt within the next few years. This paper examines how disability dispositions, decisions, and award rates by ALJs in the SSA vary according to factors such as gender, tenure with the SSA, age, general experience in the legal profession, and salary. The data, which span the years 2005-2011, are obtained from the SSA's Office of Disability and Adjudication Review (ODAR), which publicly reports statistics such as the number of appeals heard and the percentage of favorable decisions by each judge, along with internet searches to obtain information on the personal attributes of the judges. Understanding the factors affecting the decisions of these judges could be useful for identifying fruitful avenues for the SSA to control spending through this program, and more generally could provide insight on how the attributes of highly educated professional workers affect their work output.
Title from caption. ; Mode of access: Internet. ; Issued with: United States. Federal Labor Relations Authority. Report of case decisions; and: United States. Federal Labor Relations Authority. Citator.
The 1132 administrative law judges now serving in twenty‐nine of the most important agencies of the national government are among the least understood and least studied authorities in the American political system, yet they are among the most powerful authorities in the modern policy process. ALJs have undergone a repid development from the creation of the office of "hearing examiner" in the Hepburn Act of 1906 to the rpesent djay, when they hear cases cfomparable in importance to those heard by federal district judges. ALHs are selected through a merit procedure almost wholly controlled by the agencies in which they are employed and are subject to constant cross‐pressures from their judicial role and their administrative masters. Perceived problems of biased selection procedures, conflicts of interest, and lack of public accountability have led critics in Congress and elsewhere to propose a variety of marginal reforms. The policy proposal that probably gets to the heart of the problem, however, is the creation of an Administrative Court of the United States.
There has been significant scholarly research on judicial decision making and bureaucratic control but little research on bureaucrats who perform a judicial function, namely, administrative law judges. In this article, we analyze the influences on the decisions of administrative law judges (ALJs) from 1991 to 2006. Using ordered logit, we examine the influence of policy preference and hierarchical and political constraint. We find that ALJs are comparable to Federal District Court judges in that they use ideology in their rulings, are also subject to hierarchical control by higher courts, and that they are constrained by separation of powers influences.
La objetividad y la vinculación de la Administración a la ley son
cuestiones permanentes abiertas en el Derecho público comparado. Diversos son
los instrumentos jurídicos con las que, en cada Estado, se pretende alcanzar esos
objetivos. En España, la garantía de objetividad y de legalidad se ha depositado,
fundamentalmente, en los jueces. Otros países disponen de instrumentos administrativos
que, sin necesidad de intervención judicial, pretenden alcanzar los mismos
objetivos. Este es el caso de los llamados «Administrative Law Judges» del
Derecho norteamericano. Son empleados administrativos independientes (con estatuto
cuasi judicial de independencia) cuya función es oír a los interesados en los
procedimientos administrativos contradictorios y proponer una decisión objetiva
en el correspondiente asunto. La independencia de la que disponen estos empleados
públicos, respecto de los cargos directivos de las correspondientes agencias
administrativas, permite asegurar la objetividad y legalidad sin necesidad de intervención
judicial. Objektibotasuna eta Administrazioa Legeari lotuta izatea Zuzenbide
Publiko Konparatuan beti irekita dauden gaiak dira. Helburu hori lortzeko, estatu
bakoitzak hainbat tresna juridiko izaten ditu. Espainian, objektibotasunaren eta
legezkotasunaren bermea epaileen esku utzi da, funtsean. Beste herrialde batzuek
tresna administratiboak dituzte, helburu berberak lortzeko esku-hartze judizialaren
beharrik gabe. Horrelakoak dira Ipar Amerikako «Administrative Law Judges» deituak.
Administrazio-enplegatu independenteak dira (independentziazko estatutu ia
judiziala dutenak), eta funtzio hau dute: aurkakotasun-prozedura administratiboetan
interesdunei entzutea eta dagokion gaian erabaki objektibo bat proposatzea.
Administrazio-agentzietako zuzendaritza-kargudunen aldean enplegatu publiko horiek
duten independentziari esker, objektibotasuna eta legezkotasuna berma daiteke,
esku-hartze judizialaren beharrik gabe. Objectivity and legality of the Public Administration are open
issues in comparative law. Various are the legal instruments by means of which
each nation intends to achieve those objectives. In Spain, the guarantees of
objectivity and legality traditionally rely on the judicial branch of power. Other
countries have displayed distinctive administrative instruments, different to judicial
intervention, to achieve the same objectives. This is the case of the so-called
«Administrative Law Judges» of US law. They are independent administrative
employees holding quasi-judicial independent. Their task consists of conducting
the hearings in contradictory administrative procedures and proposing objective
decisions to the directors of the relevant administrative agencies.
In: Lens, V. (2012). Judge or Bureaucrat? Examining how Administrative Law Judge exercise their discretion in public welfare bureaucracies. Social Service Review 86(2), 269-293.
Federal administrative law judges (ALJs) are among the few classified service employees who are exempted from periodic performance review. The purpose is to protect their decisional independence from encroachment by the agencies that employ them. Given the interest of the public administration community in performance evaluation, this article reviews and analyzes recent attempts to answer the question of who should evaluate federal ALJs' performance. The end in view is to challenge the community in general and human resources scholars and practitioners in particular to add the question posed here to their purview. The importance of the ALJ position and the difficulty of answering the question deserve a wider, informed audience.
This study investigates the effect of attitudes, case facts, and political control on the fair housing decisions made by administrative law judges (ALJs) at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Based on data obtained from HUD under a Freedom of Information Act request, we use Probit regression to model the outcomes of every housing discrimination case decided by the entire population of ALJs between 1989 and 2003. We discover significant variation in the likelihood of a pro-complainant outcome and the amount of actual damages awarded in fair housing disputes. The attitudinal model of judicial decision making appears to apply to ALJ behavior in housing discrimination cases. At the same time, case facts, bureaucratic oversight, and other legal factors constrain ALJs. Adapted from the source document.
ObjectiveThis study investigates the effect of attitudes, case facts, and political control on the fair housing decisions made by administrative law judges (ALJs) at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).MethodsBased on data obtained from HUD under a Freedom of Information Act request, we use Probit regression to model the outcomes of every housing discrimination case decided by the entire population of ALJs between 1989 and 2003.ResultsWe discover significant variation in the likelihood of a pro‐complainant outcome and the amount of actual damages awarded in fair housing disputes.ConclusionThe attitudinal model of judicial decision making appears to apply to ALJ behavior in housing discrimination cases. At the same time, case facts, bureaucratic oversight, and other legal factors constrain ALJs.
