Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 86

529US1

Unit: $U32

[10-04-01 09:20:53] PAGES PGT: OPIN

Cite as: 529 U. S. 1 (2000)

11

Opinion of the Court

III

In answering the question, we temporarily put the case
on which the Court of Appeals relied, Michigan Academy,
supra, to the side. Were we not to take account of that case,
§ 405(h) as interpreted by the Court’s earlier cases of Wein-
berger v. Salﬁ, supra, and Heckler v. Ringer, supra, would
clearly bar this § 1331 lawsuit.

In Salﬁ, a mother and a daughter, ﬁling on behalf of
themselves and a class of individuals, brought a § 1331 ac-
tion challenging the constitutionality of a statutory provi-
sion that, if valid, would deny them Social Security beneﬁts.
See 42 U. S. C. §§ 416(c)(5), (e)(2) (imposing a duration-of-
relationship Social Security eligibility requirement for sur-
viving wives and stepchildren of deceased wage earners).
The mother and daughter had appeared before the agency
but had not completed its processes. The class presumably
included some who had, and some who had not, appeared
before the agency; the complaint did not say. This Court
held that § 405(h) barred § 1331 jurisdiction for all members
of the class because “it is the Social Security Act which
provides both the standing and the substantive basis for
the presentation of th[e] constitutional contentions.” Salﬁ,
supra, at 760–761. The Court added that the bar applies
“irrespective of whether resort to judicial processes is ne-
cessitated by discretionary decisions of the Secretary or by
his nondiscretionary application of allegedly unconstitutional
statutory restrictions.”
It also pointed
out that the bar did not “preclude constitutional challenges,”
but simply “require[d] that they be brought” under the same
“jurisdictional grants” and “in conformity with the same
standards” applicable “to nonconstitutional claims arising
under the Act.”

422 U. S., at 762.

Ibid.

We concede that the Court also pointed to certain special
features of the case not present here. The plaintiff class had
asked for relief that included a direction to the Secretary to
pay Social Security beneﬁts to those entitled to them but for