Heckler v. Lopez

• Decision Date: 09 September 1983
• Docket Number: No. A-145,A-145
• Citation: 104 S.Ct. 10,463 U.S. 1328,77 L.Ed.2d 1431
• Parties: Margaret M. HECKLER, Secretary of Health and Human Services v. Mario LOPEZ et al
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

463 U.S. 1328

104 S.Ct. 10

77 L.Ed.2d 1431

Margaret M. HECKLER, Secretary of Health and Human Services

v Mario LOPEZ et al.

No. A-145.

Sept. 9, 1983.

Justice REHNQUIST, Circuit Justice.

Applicant, the Secretary of Health and Human Services ("Secretary"), requests that I issue a partial stay pending appeal of a preliminary injunction issued by the District Court for the Central District of California, --- F.Supp. ----. The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, 713 F.2d 1432, rejected the Secretary's application for an emergency stay and for a stay pending appeal. On September 1, 1983, I granted the Secretary's request for a temporary stay pending further consideration of the application and the response. I have now decided to grant the stay requested by the Secretary.

This class action suit was instituted by numerous individuals and organizations to challenge the Secretary's failure to follow two Ninth Circuit decisions in terminating the payment of benefits under Title II and Title XVI of the Social Security Act to recipients in the Ninth Circuit. On the authority of Finnegan v. Matthews, 641 F.2d 1340 (CA9 1981) and Patti v. Schweiker, 669 F.2d 582 (CA9 1982), respondents contend that the Secretary cannot terminate the payment of benefits without producing evidence that a recipient's medical condition has improved since he previously was declared disabled. The Secretary, on the other hand, relying on agency regulations which specifically disavow the holdings of Patti and Finnegan, contends that she can terminate benefits when current evidence indicates that a prior recipient is not now disabled. She argues that she need not produce specific evidence that the prior recipient's medical condition has improved.

Respondents styled their claim in the District Court as a constitutional challenge to the Secretary's "nonacquiescence" with settled-law in the Ninth Circuit, an action which they argue violates constitutional principles of separation of powers and which deprives them of due process and equal protection. The District Court granted respondents' motion for class certification and their motion for a preliminary injunction.

The first part of the District Court's injunction, which the Secretary has not sought to stay, restrains the Secretary from disregarding Patti and Finnegan in pending and future cases. Paragraph 4(c), on the other hand, directs the Secretary within 60 days of the order to notify each member of the class that he can apply for reinstatement of benefits if he believes that his medical condition has not improved since his initial disability determination. Paragraph 4(c) requires the Secretary immediately to reinstate benefits to the applicants who apply. Following reinstatement of benefits, the Secretary can conduct hearings to establish lack of disability, but in those hearings, the Secretary must make a showing of medical improvement pursuant to Patti and Finnegan before terminating benefits. In a later order the District Court ruled that the Secretary can recoup interim benefits if she produces evidence at the hearing that the applicant's medical condition has improved now or that it had improved at the earlier time when benefits were terminated.

On August 15, 1983, after the Ninth Circuit refused to issue an emergency stay, the Secretary notified 34,357 members of the class that they could apply for reinstatement of benefits. The Secretary already has begun to receive applications. Thus the Secretary only requests that I stay the portion of Paragraph 4(c) which requires her to pay benefits to all applicants until she establishes their lack of disability through hearings complying with Patti and Finnegan.

My obligation as a Circuit Justice in considering the usual stay application is "to determine whether four Justices would vote to grant certiorari, to balance the so-called 'stay equities,' and to give some consideration as to predicting the final outcome of the case in this Court." Gregory-Portland Independent School District v. United States, 448 U.S. 1342, 101 S.Ct. 20, 65 L.Ed.2d 1164 (1980) (REHNQUIST, J., in chambers). The Secretary's stay application does not come to me in the posture of the usual application, however. The Secretary does not ask me to stay the judgment of the Court of Appeals pending the disposition of a petition for certiorari in this Court. She asks instead that I grant a stay of the District Court's judgment pending appeal to the Ninth Circuit when the Ninth Circuit itself has refused to issue the stay.

Although there is no question that I have jurisdiction to grant the Secretary's request, it is also clear that "a stay application to a Circuit Justice on a matter before a court of appeals is rarely granted." Atiyeh v. Capps, 449 U.S. 1312, 1313, 101 S.Ct. 829, 830, 66 L.Ed.2d 785 (1981) (REHNQUIST, J., in chambers) (citation omitted); see O'Rourke v. Levine, 80 S.Ct. 623, 624, 4 L.Ed.2d 615 (1960) (Harlan, J., in chambers). For the reasons I am about to set out, I believe that the present case is sufficiently unusual to warrant the relief sought.

Ordinarily, in an action for an injunction, the decision of the Court on the "merits" will be of greater concern to a re- viewing court than the particular provisions of an injunction, which are primarily entrusted to the discretion of the District Court. In this case, however, I believe that the scope of the District Court's injunction would prompt review of the injunction by at least four members of this Court should the Court of Appeals affirm it without modification. I believe this is true even though I assume that the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit will certainly follow its Patti and Finnegan decisions when it hears the Secretary's appeal. I likewise assume that since there does not appear to be any significant circuit conflict on this point at present, four Justices of this Court would not be likely to grant a petition for certiorari should the Secretary seek review in this Court of the merits of a Ninth Circuit opinion reaffirming Patti and Finnegan.

But the District Court's injunction goes far beyond the application of Patti and Finnegan to concrete cases before it. I think that Paragraph 4(c) of the injunction issued by the District Court, because of its mandatory nature, its treatment of the statutory requirement of exhaustion of administrative remedies, and its direction to the Secretary to pay benefits on an interim basis to parties who have neither been found by the Secretary nor by a court of competent jurisdiction to be disabled, significantly interferes with the distribution between administrative and judicial responsibility for enforcement of the Social Security Act which Congress has established. While review of an injunction issued by a lower federal court independently of the "merits" of the issue involved in the case is not common, this Court has not hesitated to reverse a District Court where it concluded that the injunction did not comply with a provision of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, without ever reaching the "merits" of the question involved. See, e.g., Schmidt v. Lessard, 414 U.S. 473, 94 S.Ct. 713, 38 L.Ed.2d 661 (1974).

The injunction issued by the District Court in this case must be evaluated first in the light of the provisions for judi- cial review of determinations of eligibility for benefits by the Secretary. The principal provisions follow:

"Any individual, after any final decision of the Secretary made after a hearing to which he was a party, irrespective of the amount in controversy, may obtain a review of such decision by a civil action commenced within 60 days after the mailing to him of notice of such decision or within such further time as the Secretary may allow . . . . The Court shall have power to enter, upon the pleadings and transcript of the record, a judgment affirming, modifying, or reversing the decision of the Secretary, with or without remanding the cause for a rehearing. The findings of the Secretary as to any fact, if supported by substantial evidence, shall be conclusive, . . . ." 42 U.S.C. § 405(g).

"The findings and decisions of the Secretary after a hearing shall be binding upon all individuals who are parties to such hearing. No findings of fact or decision of the Secretary shall be reviewed by any person, tribunal, or government agency except as herein provided. No action against the United States, the Secretary, or any other officer or employee thereof shall be brought under §§ 1331 or 1346 of Title 28 to recover on any claim arising under this subchapter." 42 U.S.C. § 405(h).

We have held that these provisions codify the doctrine of exhaustion of administrative remedies, circumscribe the methods by which judicial review of a determination of the Secretary may be obtained, and set forth the standard for the exercise of judicial review. Weinberger v. Salfi, 422 U.S. 749, 95 S.Ct. 2457, 45 L.Ed.2d 522 (1975). We have also held that the scope of judicial review of the Secretary's determinations is a very limited one. Heckler v. Campbell, --- U.S. ----, 103 S.Ct. 1952, 1957, 76 L.Ed.2d 66 (1983).

The scope of the District Court's injunction must also be evaluated in the light of familiar principles of administrative law enunciated in our decisions. In Vermont Yankee Nu- clear Power Corp. v. NRDC, 435 U.S. 519, 524, 98 S.Ct. 1197, 1202, 55 L.Ed.2d 460, this Court said:

"[T]his Court has for more than four decades emphasized that the formulation of procedures was basically to be left within the discretion of the agencies to which Congress had confided the responsibility for substantive judgments. In FCC v. Schreiber, 381 U.S. 279, 290 [85 S.Ct. 1459, 1467, 14 L.Ed.2d 383] (1965), the Court explicated this principle, describing it as 'an outgrowth of the congressional determination that administrative agencies and administrators will be familiar with the industries which they regulate and will be in a better position than ...