Disability Law Blog

The NewsHour Examines the Election's Impact on the Federal Judiciary

Margaret Warner interviews Ted Olson, former Solicitor General in the Bush administration, and Eleanor Acheson, former assistant Attorney General in the Clinton administration, for their views on how the upcoming presidential election may impact the federal judiciary and, in turn, the American public who litigate in federal courts. Read the transcript or listen to the audio.

Web Guide to U.S. Supreme Court Research

Via LLRX:  Gail A. Partin, an Associate Law Librarian in the Sheely-Lee Law Library at Penn State’s Dickinson School of Law has written a very useful guide to U.S. Supreme Court Research:

The Web Guide to U.S. Supreme Court Research is intended to facilitate the convenience and speed that we expect when turning to the Internet for our research needs. Often, we are unimpressed by the performance of search engines primarily because of problems with the quantity or relevancy of the results. This Web Guide attempts to overcome the shortcomings of general web searching by providing a selection of annotated links to the most reliable, substantive sites for U.S. Supreme Court research. The sites mentioned here focus predominantly on information that is freely, or inexpensively, available on the Internet.

Published December 22, 2003.

Barnhart v. Thomas Flotsam

In the for-what-it's-worth department, Howard Bashman at How Appealing says this about Judge Samuel A. Alito, Jr., the Third Circuit judge who authored the majority opinion in the 7-3 en banc decision in Barnhart v. Thomas, a decision reversed by the Supreme Court in a 9-0 decision authored by Justice Scalia:

In the past, Judge Alito has been rumored as a possible U.S. Supreme Court nominee, but some have accused him of being a clone of Justice Scalia. Wednesday's ruling demonstrates that this is simply not true, and that in fact Judge Alito cares much more for the "little guy" than do any of the nine Justices currently serving on the Court.

Barnhart v. Thomas: Step 4 Doesn't Require Inquiry into Whether PRW Still Exists

In Barnhart v. Thomas (pdf), __ U.S. __ (Nov. 12, 2003), Justice Scalia, writing for a unanimous court, says

. . . [S]tep four can result in a determination of no disability without inquiry into whether the claimant's previous work exists in the national economy; the regulations explicitly reserve inquiry into the national economy for step five. Thus, the SSA has made it perfectly clear that it does not interpret the clause "which exists in the national economy" §423(d)(2)(A) as applying to "previous work."

Giving the Commissioner's interpretation Chevron deference, the Court reverses the 3rd Circuit. "The proper Chevron inquiry is not whether the agency construction can give rise to undesirable results in some instances (as here both constructions can), but rather whether, in light of the alternatives, the agency construction is reasonable. In the present case, the SSA’s authoritative interpretation certainly satisfies that test."

Transcript of argument in Barnhart v. Thomas

Here's a link to the transcript of oral argument in Barnhart v. Thomas, the U.S. Supreme Court case involving whether a claim can be denied at step 4 when PRW no longer exists in the regional or national economies.

Recap of oral argument in Barnhart v. Thomas

From SCOTUSBlog, a recap of oral argument at the Supreme Court in Barnhart v. Thomas. Thomas addresses whether a person can be considered disabled when she retains the ability to perform her previous work, but that work no longer exists in significant numbers in the national economy. An excerpt from the recap:

Counsel for Ms. Thomas went on to argue for an alternate theory of judicial deference, much to the surprise of the Court (because this point is not mentioned in her brief), arguing the Court is not controlled by Chevron and instead should look to Skidmore deference as the appropriate standard. Chief Justice Rehnquist then entered the fray, noting that his understanding of the Court's statutory construction precedent indicates that a two-part inquiry is required in the present case: (1) is the statute ambiguous; and (2) if it is ambiguous, then is the agency's interpretation of the statute reasonable? Counsel argued that an agency's adopted regulations implementing a federal statute deserve less deference than would be normally afforded to an agency's interpretation of a statute, thus less deference than would be given under Chevron. Moreover, Counsel contended that when a claimant's previous job may no longer exist, and if does not exist in the economy, then it is unreasonable for the Commissioner to prevent her from obtaining disability benefits.