Today’s Atlanta Journal-Constitution printed a front page article entitled Ruling: Judge Slighted Duties.  The article reports the finding of an administrative law judge that Atlanta North ALJ Kelly Jennings can be removed from his position as an ALJ because he simultaneously served as an active duty lawyer for the Army.

In addition to firing Judge Jennings, Social Security is also going to attempt to collect over $300,000 in back pay.  The ALJ considering this case concluded that because he was working for the army, Judge Jennings was not able to give his Social Security cases his full attention, thus contributing to the backlog in the Atlanta North office.

Excuse my use of the vernacular here, but this ruling against Judge Jennings is a load of crap.  First and foremost, I find it incredible that any trier of fact would attempt to blame the Atlanta North backlog on one judge.  The problem in Atlanta North does not lie at the feet of the judges; instead, the problem has to do with the lack of staff and Social Security’s slow embrace of technology.  Judges are part of the puzzle, to be sure, but if the case files are not put together, if the hearings are not scheduled, if there are not enough writers to prepare draft decisions, and if thousands upon thousands of claims are being filed, there are going to be delays.

I try cases in the downtown Atlanta hearing office, as well as in Rome, Columbus, Macon and Savannah.   The Atlanta North office has been the slowest in adopting the paperless exhibit files (exhibits are on CD) the paper files that we do use are usually not numbered or properly prepared for hearings.   If Judge Jennings was able to process 10x as many cases as he did, none of this would change.  Nothing in the AJC article suggested that Judge Jennings rate of productivity was any less than any of his colleagues.

I also wonder if the ALJ considering this issue took the time to speak to any of the lawyers that appeared before Judge Jennings.  In my experience, Judge Jennings was always prepared for hearings and his processing time for issuing decisions was no different than any of the other Atlanta North judges.  As an aside, Judge Jennings was considered to be more on the conservative side when it came to approving cases, so I am not writing this out of self interest.  However, he was never arbitrary and his approach was always consistent, meaning that going in to a case I pretty much knew what I needed to present my case.   In cases that he granted, Judge Jennings would frequently include specific direction to Social Security to review a claim in two or three years.  I think he felt a responsibility to the taxpayers to insure that anyone who would be collecting benefits truly deserved them.

Finally, as noted above, Judge Jennings “other” job was as a lawyer for the Army.  This was known to everyone at Atlanta North – I remember one occasion in particular, when Judge Jennings had to postpone hearings because he had an active duty deployment.  Here, then, we have an individual serving his country in a time of war who is being unfairly singed out as the reason for a backlog problem that is, in truth, the result of widespread and systematic inefficiency.