Source: https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/17-1184
Timestamp: 2019-04-19 10:36:33+00:00

Document:
Petitioner Michael Biestek, a former construction worker, applied for social security disability benefits, claiming he could no longer work due to physical and mental disabilities. The Social Security Administration (SSA) assigned an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) to conduct a hearing, at which the ALJ had to determine whether Biestek could successfully transition to less physically demanding work. For guidance on that issue, the ALJ heard testimony from a vocational expert regarding the types of jobs Biestek could still perform and the number of such jobs that existed in the national economy. See 20 CFR §§404.1560(c)(1), 416.960(c)(1). On cross-examination, Biestek’s attorney asked the expert “where [she was] getting [her numbers] from,” and the expert explained they were from her own individual labor market surveys. Biestek’s attorney then requested that the expert turn over the surveys. The expert declined. The ALJ ultimately denied Biestek benefits, basing his conclusion on the expert’s testimony about the number of jobs available to him. Biestek sought review in federal court, where an ALJ’s factual findings are “conclusive” if supported by “substantial evidence,” 42 U. S. C. §405(g). The District Court rejected Biestek’s argument that the expert’s testimony could not possibly constitute substantial evidence because she had declined to produce her supporting data. The Sixth Circuit affirmed.
Substantial evidence is “more than a mere scintilla,” and means only “such relevant evidence as a reasonable mind might accept as adequate to support a conclusion.” Consolidated Edison Co. v. NLRB, 305 U. S. 197, 229. Biestek proposes a categorical rule that the testimony of a vocational expert who refuses a request for supporting data about job availability can never clear that bar. To assess that proposal, the Court begins with the parties’ common ground: Assuming no demand, a vocational expert’s testimony may count as substantial evidence even when unaccompanied by supporting data.
The Social Security Administration (SSA) provides benefits to individuals who cannot obtain work because of a physical or mental disability. To determine whether an applicant is entitled to benefits, the agency may hold an informal hearing examining (among other things) the kind and number of jobs available for someone with the applicant’s disability and other characteristics. The agency’s factual findings on that score are “conclusive” in judicial review of the benefits decision so long as they are sup-ported by “substantial evidence.” 42 U. S. C. §405(g).
After some preliminary proceedings, the SSA assigned an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) to hold a hearing on Biestek’s application. Those hearings, as described in the Social Security Act, 49Stat. 620, as amended, 42 U. S. C. §301 et seq., are recognizably adjudicative in nature. The ALJ may “receive evidence” and “examine witnesses” about the contested issues in a case. §§405(b)(1), 1383(c)(1)(A). But many of the rules governing such hear-ings are less rigid than those a court would follow. See Richardson v. Perales, 402 U. S. 389, 400–401 (1971). An ALJ is to conduct a disability hearing in “an informal, non-adversarial manner.” 20 CFR §404.900(b) (2018); §416.1400(b). Most notably, an ALJ may receive evidence in a disability hearing that “would not be admissible in court.” §§404.950(c), 416.1450(c); see 42 U. S. C. §§405(b)(1), 1383(c)(1)(A).
Biestek sought review in federal court of the ALJ’s denial of benefits for the period between October 2009 and May 2013. On judicial review, an ALJ’s factual findings—such as the determination that Biestek could have found sedentary work—“shall be conclusive” if supported by “substantial evidence.” 42 U. S. C. §405(g); see supra, at 1. Biestek contended that O’Callaghan’s testimony could not possibly constitute such evidence because she had declined, upon request, to produce her supporting data. See Plaintiff’s Motion for Summary Judgment in No. 16–10422 (ED Mich.), Doc. 22, p. 23. But the District Court rejected that argument. See 2017 WL 1173775, *2 (Mar. 30, 2017). And the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed. See Biestek v. Commissioner of Social Security, 880 F. 3d 778 (2018). That court recognized that the Seventh Circuit had adopted the categorical rule Biestek proposed, precluding a vocational expert’s testimony from qualifying as substantial if the expert had declined an applicant’s request to provide supporting data. See id., at 790 (citing McKinnie v. Barnhart, 368 F. 3d 907, 910–911 (2004)). But that rule, the Sixth Circuit observed in joining the ranks of unconvinced courts, “ha[d] not been a popular export.” 880 F. 3d, at 790 (internal quotation marks omitted).
The phrase “substantial evidence” is a “term of art” used throughout administrative law to describe how courts are to review agency factfinding. T-Mobile South, LLC v. Roswell, 574 U. S. ___, ___ (2015) (slip op., at 7). Under the substantial-evidence standard, a court looks to an existing administrative record and asks whether it contains “sufficien[t] evidence” to support the agency’s factual determinations. Consolidated Edison Co. v. NLRB, 305 U. S. 197, 229 (1938) (emphasis deleted). And whatever the meaning of “substantial” in other contexts, the threshold for such evidentiary sufficiency is not high. Substantial evidence, this Court has said, is “more than a mere scintilla.” Ibid.; see, e.g., Perales, 402 U. S., at 401 (internal quotation marks omitted). It means—and means only—“such relevant evidence as a reasonable mind might accept as adequate to support a conclusion.” Consolidated Edison, 305 U. S., at 229. See Dickinson v. Zurko, 527 U. S. 150, 153 (1999) (comparing the substantial-evidence standard to the deferential clearly-erroneous standard).
Biestek initially takes pains—and understandably so—to distinguish his argument from a procedural claim. Reply Brief 12–14. At no stage in this litigation, Biestek says, has he ever espoused “a free-standing procedural rule under which a vocational expert would always have to produce [her underlying data] upon request.” Id., at 2. That kind of rule exists in federal court: There, an expert witness must produce all data she has considered in reaching her conclusions. See Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 26(a)(2)(B). But as Biestek appreciates, no similar requirement applies in SSA hearings. As explained above, Congress intended those proceedings to be “informal” and provided that the “strict rules of evidence, applicable in the courtroom, are not to” apply. Perales, 402 U. S., at 400; see 42 U. S. C. §405(b)(1); supra, at 2. So Biestek does not press for a “procedural rule” governing “the means through which an evidentiary record [must be] created.” Tr. of Oral Arg. 6; Reply Brief 13. Instead, he urges a “substantive rule” for “assess[ing] the quality and quantity of [record] evidence”—which would find testimony like O’Callaghan’s inadequate, when taken alone, to support an ALJ’s factfinding. Id., at 12.
1 In contrast, the principal dissent cannot decide whether it favors such a categorical rule. At first, Justice Gorsuch endorses the rule Biestek and the Seventh Circuit have proposed. See post, at 2. But in then addressing our opinion, he takes little or no issue with the reasoning we offer to show why that rule is too broad. See post, at 4–7. So the dissent tries to narrow the scope of Biestek’s categorical rule—to only cases that look just like his. See post, at 7–8. And still more, it shelves all the “categorical” talk and concentrates on Biestek’s case alone. See post, at 1, 4–8. There, Justice Gorsuch’s dissent joins Justice Sotomayor’s in concluding that the expert evidence in this case was insubstantial. But as we later explain, see infra, at 11, Biestek did not petition us to resolve that factbound question; nor did his briefing and argument focus on anything other than the Seventh Circuit’s categorical rule. We confine our opinion accordingly.
2 The SSA itself appears to agree. In the handbook given to voca-tional experts, the agency states: “You should have available, atthe hearing, any vocational resource materials that you are likelyto rely upon” because “the ALJ may ask you to provide relevantportions of [those] materials.” SSA, Vocational Expert Handbook 37(Aug. 2017), https://www.ssa.gov/appeals/public_experts/Vocational_Experts_(VE)_Handbook-508.pdf (as last visited Mar. 28, 2019).
Perhaps the ALJ would have allowed Biestek’s counsel to ask followup questions about the basis for the testimony at that point, and perhaps Biestek’s counsel should have tried to do so. But a Social Security proceeding is “inquisitorial rather than adversarial.” Sims v. Apfel, 530 U. S. 103, 110–111 (2000); see 20 CFR §§404.900(b), 416.1400(b). The ALJ acts as “an examiner charged with developing the facts,” Richardson v. Perales, 402 U. S. 389, 410 (1971), and has a duty to “develop the arguments both for and against granting benefits,” Sims, 530 U. S., at 111; see also Social Security Ruling, SSR 00–4P, 65 Fed. Reg. 75760 (2000) (noting “the adjudicator’s duty to fully de-velop the record”). Here, instead of taking steps to ensure that the claimant had a basis from which effective cross-examination could be made and thus the record could be developed, the ALJ cut off that process by intervening when Biestek’s counsel asked about the possibility of redaction.
1 I note that the agency’s own handbook says that experts “should have available, at the hearing, any vocational resource materials that [they] are likely to rely upon and should be able to thoroughly explain what resource materials [they] used and how [they] arrived at [their] opinions.” SSA, Vocational Expert Handbook 37 (Aug. 2017), https://www.ssa.gov / appeals / public_experts / Vocational_Experts_(VE)_Handbook-508.pdf (as last visited Mar. 29, 2019).
Start with the legal standard. The Social Security Act of 1935 requires the agency to support its conclusions about the number of available jobs with “substantial evidence.” 42 U. S. C. §405(g). Congress borrowed that standard from civil litigation practice, where reviewing courts may overturn a jury verdict when the record lacks “substantial evidence”—that is, evidence sufficient to permit a reasonable jury to reach the verdict it did. Much the same standard governs summary judgment and directed verdict practice today. See 2 K. Hickman & R. Pierce, Administrative Law §10.2.1, pp. 1082–1085 (6th ed. 2019); Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U. S. 242, 252 (1986); NLRB v. Columbian Enameling & Stamping Co., 306 U. S. 292, 300 (1939).
Next, consider what we know about this standard. Witness testimony that’s clearly wrong as a matter of fact cannot be substantial evidence. See Scott v. Harris, 550 U. S. 372, 380 (2007). Falsified evidence isn’t substantial evidence. See, e.g., Firemen’s and Policemen’s Civil Serv. Comm’n v. Brinkmeyer, 662 S. W. 2d 953, 956 (Tex. 1984). Speculation isn’t substantial evidence. See, e.g., Cao He Lin v. Department of Justice, 428 F. 3d 391, 400 (CA2 2005); Alpo Petfoods, Inc. v. NLRB, 126 F. 3d 246, 250 (CA4 1997). And, maybe most pointedly for our purposes, courts have held that a party or expert who supplies only conclusory assertions fails this standard too. See, e.g., Lujan v. National Wildlife Federation, 497 U. S. 871, 888 (1990) (“The object of [summary-judgment practice] is not to replace conclusory allegations of the complaint or answer with conclusory allegations of an affidavit”); Regents of Univ. of Minn. v. AGA Medical Corp., 717 F. 3d 929, 941 (CA Fed. 2013) (“conclusory expert assertions cannot raise triable issues of material fact”) (collecting cases); Mid-State Fertilizer Co. v. Exchange Nat. Bank of Chicago, 877 F. 2d 1333, 1339 (CA7 1989) (“An expert who supplies nothing but a bottom line supplies nothing of value to the judicial process”); Sea Robin Pipeline Co. v. FERC, 795 F. 2d 182, 188 (CADC 1986) (“[I]nordinate faith in the conclusory assertions of an expert . . . cannot satisfy the requirement [of] substantial evidence”).
The answer is an old and familiar one. The refusal to supply readily available evidentiary support for a conclusion strongly suggests that the conclusion is, well, unsupported. See, e.g., Interstate Circuit, Inc. v. United States, 306 U. S. 208, 226 (1939) (“The production of weak evidence when strong is available can lead only to the conclusion that the strong would have been adverse”); Clifton v. United States, 4 How. 242, 248 (1846) (the withholding of “more direct” proof suggests that “if the more perfect exposition had been given it would have laid open deficiencies and objections which the more obscure and uncertain testimony was intended to conceal”); 31A C. J. S., Evidence §156(2), p. 402 (1964) (“The unfavorable inference . . . is especially applicable where the party withholding the evidence has had notice or has been ordered to produce it”). Meanwhile, a similar inference may not arise if no one’s bothered to ask for the evidence, or if the evidence is shown to be unavailable for a good reason. In cases like those, there may be just too many other plaus-ible and innocent excuses for the evidence’s absence. Maybe,for example, nobody bothered to seek the underlying data because everyone knew what it would show.
The principle that the government must support its allegations with substantial evidence, not conclusions and secret evidence, guards against arbitrary executive decisionmaking. See Friendly, “Some Kind of Hearing,” 123 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1267, 1313–1314 (1975). Without it, people like Mr. Biestek are left to the mercy of a bureaucrat’s caprice. Over 100 years ago, in ICC v. Louisville & Nashville R. Co., 227 U. S. 88 (1913), the government sought to justify an agency order binding private parties without producing the information on which the agency had relied. The government argued that its findings should be “presumed to have been supported.” Id., at 93. In essence, the government sought the right to “act upon any sort of secret evidence.” Gellhorn, Official Notice in Administrative Adjudication, 20 Texas L. Rev. 131, 145 (1941). This Court did not approve of that practice then, and I would not have hesitated to make clear that we do not approve of it today.

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