Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/587/17-1184/
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 02:17:55+00:00

Document:
Biestek, a former construction worker, applied for social security disability benefits, claiming he could no longer work due to physical and mental disabilities. To determine whether Biestek could successfully transition to less physically demanding work, 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. The statistics came from her own market surveys. The expert refused Biestek’s attorney's request to turn over the surveys. The ALJ denied Biestek benefits. An ALJ’s factual findings are “conclusive” if supported by “substantial evidence,” 42 U.S.C. 405(g).
The Sixth Circuit and the Supreme Court upheld the ALJ’s determination. A vocational expert’s refusal to provide private market-survey data upon the applicant’s request does not categorically preclude the testimony from counting as “substantial evidence.” In some cases, the refusal to disclose data, considered along with other shortcomings, will undercut an expert’s credibility and prevent a court from finding that “a reasonable mind” could accept the expert’s testimony; the refusal will sometimes interfere with effective cross-examination, which a reviewing court may consider in deciding how to credit an expert’s opinion. In other cases, even without supporting data, an applicant will be able to probe the expert’s testimony on cross-examination. The Court declined to establish a categorical rule, applying to every case in which a vocational expert refuses a request for underlying data. The inquiry remains case-by-case, taking into account all features of the expert’s testimony, with the rest of the record, and defers to the presiding ALJ.
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).
After the hearing concluded, the ALJ issued a decision granting Biestek’s application in part and denying it in part. According to the ALJ, Biestek was entitled to benefits beginning in May 2013, when his advancing age (he turned fifty that month) adversely affected his ability to find employment. See App. to Pet. for Cert. 19a, 112a–113a. But before that time, the ALJ held, Biestek’s dis- abilities should not have prevented a “successful adjustment to other work.” Id., at 110a–112a. The ALJ based that conclusion on O’Callaghan’s testimony about the availability in the economy of “sedentary unskilled occupations such as bench assembler [or] sorter.” Id., at 111a (emphasis deleted).
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).
Today, Biestek argues that the testimony of a vocational expert who (like O’Callaghan) refuses a request for supporting data about job availability can never clear the substantial-evidence bar. See Brief for Petitioner 21–34. As that formulation makes clear, Biestek’s proposed rule is categorical, rendering expert testimony insufficient to sustain an ALJ’s factfinding whenever such a refusal has occurred. But Biestek hastens to add two caveats. The first is to clarify what the rule is not, the second to stress where its limits lie.
To assess Biestek’s proposal, we begin with the parties’ common ground: Assuming no demand, a vocational expert’s testimony may count as substantial evidence even when unaccompanied by supporting data. Take an example. Suppose an expert has top-of-the-line credentials, including professional qualifications and many years’ experience; suppose, too, she has a history of giving sound testimony about job availability in similar cases (perhaps before the same ALJ). Now say that she testifies about the approximate number of various sedentary jobs an applicant for benefits could perform. She explains that she arrived at her figures by surveying a range of representative employers; amassing specific information about their labor needs and employment of people with disabilities; and extrapolating those findings to the national economy by means of a well-accepted methodology. She answers cogently and thoroughly all questions put to her by the ALJ and the applicant’s lawyer. And nothing in the rest of the record conflicts with anything she says. But she never produces her survey data. Still, her testimony would be the kind of evidence—far “more than a mere scintilla”—that “a reasonable mind might accept as adequate to support” a finding about job availability. Consolidated Edison, 305 U. S., at 229. Of course, the testimony would be even better—more reliable and probative—if she had produced supporting data; that would be a best practice for the SSA and its experts. And of course, a different (maybe less qualified) expert failing to produce such data might offer testimony that is so feeble, or contradicted, that it would fail to clear the substantial-evidence bar. The point is only—as, again, Biestek accepts—that expert testimony can sometimes surmount that bar absent underlying data.
And much the same is true of Biestek’s claim that an expert’s refusal precludes meaningful cross-examination. We agree with Biestek that an ALJ and reviewing court may properly consider obstacles to such questioning when deciding how much to credit an expert’s opinion. See Perales, 402 U. S., at 402–406. But Biestek goes too far in suggesting that the refusal to provide supporting data always interferes with effective cross-examination, or that the absence of such testing always requires treating an opinion as unreliable. Even without specific data, an applicant may probe the strength of testimony by asking an expert about (for example) her sources and methods—where she got the information at issue and how she analyzed it and derived her conclusions. See, e.g., Chavez v. Berryhill, 895 F.3d 962, 969–970 (CA7 2018). And even without significant testing, a factfinder may conclude that testimony has sufficient indicia of reliability to support a conclusion about whether an applicant could find work. Indeed, Biestek effectively concedes both those points in cases where supporting data is missing, so long as an expert has not refused an applicant’s demand. See supra, at 7. But once that much is acknowledged, Biestek’s argument cannot hold. For with or without an express refusal, the absence of data places the selfsame limits on cross-examination.
Walk for a moment in Michael Biestek’s shoes. As part of your application for disability benefits, you’ve proven that you suffer from serious health problems and can’t return to your old construction job. Like many cases, yours turns on whether a significant number of other jobs remain that someone of your age, education, and experience, and with your physical limitations, could perform. When it comes to that question, the Social Security Administration bears the burden of proof. To meet its burden in your case, the agency chooses to rest on the testimony of a vocational expert the agency hired as an independent contractor. The expert asserts there are 120,000 “sorter” and 240,000 “bench assembler” jobs nationwide that you could perform even with your disabilities.
Would you say this decision was based on “substantial evidence”? Count me with Judge Easterbrook and the Seventh Circuit in thinking that an agency expert’s bottom-line conclusion, supported only by a claim of readily available evidence that she refuses to produce on request, fails to satisfy the government’s statutory burden of producing substantial evidence of available other work. See Don- ahue v. Barnhart, 279 F.3d 441, 446 (CA7 2002); McKinnie v. Barnhart, 368 F.3d 907, 910–911 (CA7 2004) (per curiam).
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”).
Veteran Social Security practitioners must be feeling a sense of déjà vu. Half a century ago, Judge Henry Friendly encountered Kerner v. Flemming, 283 F.2d 916 (CA2 1960). There, the agency’s hearing examiner offered “nothing save [his own] speculation” to support his holding that the claimant “could in fact obtain substantial gainful employment.” Id., at 921. The Second Circuit firmly explained that this kind of conclusory claim is insufficient to meet the substantial evidence standard. In response, the Social Security Administration began hiring vocational experts, like the one in this case, to document the number of jobs available to a given claimant. But if the government can do what it did in this case, it’s hard to see what all the trouble was for. The agency might still rest decisions on a hunch—just so long as the hunch comes from an agency contractor rather than an agency examiner.
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 problem is that this imaginary case has nothing to teach us about our real one. In Mr. Biestek’s case, it is undisputed that the expert offered only a bare conclusion about the number of available jobs. No other relevant testimony was offered or received: no testimony about the underlying data, no testimony about its specific sources, no testimony about its reliability. In our real case, there is simply no way to shrug off the failure to produce the data as harmless error. To the contrary, and as we have seen, cases like this routinely fail to satisfy the substantial evidence standard. And if the government has a “duty to fully develop the record,” ante, at 2 (Sotomayor, J., dissenting), that conclusion should follow all the more strongly.
What leads the Court to a different conclusion? It says that it views Mr. Biestek’s petition as raising only the “categorical” question whether an expert’s failure to produce underlying data always and in “every case” precludes her testimony from qualifying as substantial evidence. Ante, at 1, 9–11. And once the question is ratcheted up to that level of abstraction, of course it is easy enough to shoot it down: just point to a series of hypothetical cases where the record contains additional justification for the expert’s failure to produce or additional evidence to support her opinion. In such counterfactual cases, the failure to produce either would not be enough to give rise to an adverse inference under traditional legal principles or could be held harmless as a matter of law. See ante, at 7–10.
But as I understand Mr. Biestek’s submission, it does not require an all-or-nothing approach that would cover “every case.” As the Court acknowledges, Mr. Biestek has focused us “on the Seventh Circuit’s categorical rule.” Ante, at 6, n. 1. And that “rule” targets the narrower “category” of circumstances we have here—where an expert “ ‘give[s] a bottom line,’ ” fails to provide evidence “underlying that bottom line” when challenged, and fails to show the evidence is unavailable. McKinnie, 368 F. 3d, at 911 (quoting Donahue, 279 F. 3d, at 446). What to do about that category falls well within the question presented: “[w]hether a vocational expert’s testimony can consti- tute substantial evidence of ‘other work’ . . . when the expert fails upon the applicant’s request to provide the underlying data on which that testimony is premised.” Pet. for Cert. i. The answer to that question may be “always,” “never,” or—as the Court itself seems to acknowledge—“[s]ometimes.” Ante, at 11. And if the answer is “sometimes,” the critical question becomes “in what circumstances”?
There is good news and bad news in this. If my understanding of the Court’s opinion is correct, the good news is that the Court remains open to the possibility that in real-world cases like Mr. Biestek’s, lower courts may—and even should—find the substantial evidence test unmet. The bad news is that we must wait to find out, leaving many people and courts in limbo in the meantime. Cases with facts like Mr. Biestek’s appear to be all too common. See, e.g., Dubin, Overcoming Gridlock: Campbell After a Quarter-Century and Bureaucratically Rational Gap-Filling in Mass Justice Adjudication in the Social Security Administration’s Disability Programs, 62 Admin. L. Rev. 937, 966 (2010). And many courts have erred in them by finding the substantial evidence test met, as the Sixth Circuit did in the case now before us. Some courts have even conflated the substantial evidence standard—a substantive standard governing what’s needed to sustain a judgment as a matter of law—with procedural rules governing the admission of evidence. These courts have mistakenly suggested that, because the Federal Rules of Evidence don’t apply in Social Security proceedings, anything an expert says will suffice to meet the agency’s burden of proof. See, e.g., Welsh v. Commissioner of Social Security, 662 Fed. Appx. 105, 109–110 (CA3 2016); Bayliss v. Barnhart, 427 F.3d 1211, 1218, and n. 4 (CA9 2005). Definitively resolving this case would have provided more useful guidance for practitioners and lower courts that have struggled with a significant category of cases like Mr. Biestek’s, all while affording him the relief the law promises in disputes like his.
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.
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.
The result was that the expert offered no detail whatsoever on the basis for her testimony. She did not say whom she had surveyed, how many surveys she had conducted, or what information she had gathered, nor did she offer any other explanation of the data on which she relied. In conjunction with the failure to proffer the surveys themselves, the expert’s conclusory testimony alone could not constitute substantial evidence to support the ALJ’s factfinding.
I agree with much of Justice Gorsuch’s reasoning. I emphasize that I do not foreclose the possibility that a more developed record could justify an ALJ’s reliance on vocational-expert testimony in some circumstances even if the expert does not produce records underlying that testimony on request. An expert may have legitimate reasons for not turning over data, such as the burden of gathering records or confidentiality concerns that redaction cannot address. In those circumstances, as the majority suggests, the agency may be able to support an expert’s testimony in ways other than by providing underlying data, such as by offering a fulsome description of the data and methodology on which the expert relies. See ante, at 8. The agency simply did not do so here.
February 21, 2018 Pursuant to Rule 34.6 and Paragraph 9 of the Guidelines for the Submission of Documents to the Supreme Court’s Electronic Filing System, filings in this case should be submitted in paper form only, and should not be submitted through the Court’s electronic filing system.
March 20, 2018 Motion to extend the time to file a response from March 26, 2018 to April 25, 2018, submitted to The Clerk.
March 21, 2018 Motion to extend the time to file a response is granted and the time is extended to and including April 25, 2018.
April 20, 2018 Motion to extend the time to file a response is granted and the time is further extended to and including May 14, 2018.
April 20, 2018 Motion to extend the time to file a response from April 25, 2018 to May 14, 2018, submitted to The Clerk.
May 14, 2018 Brief of respondent Nancy A. Berryhill, Deputy Commissioner for Operations, Social Security Administration in opposition filed.
May 21, 2018 Reply of petitioner Michael J. Biestek filed.
July 13, 2018 Joint motion to extend the time to file the opening briefs on the merits granted. The time to file the joint appendix and petitioner's brief on the merits is extended to and including August 27, 2018. The time to file respondent's brief on the merits is extended to and including October 15, 2018.
July 13, 2018 Joint motion for an extension of time to file the opening briefs on the merits filed.
August 3, 2018 Motion of Michael J. Biestek to dispense with joint appendix submitted.
August 3, 2018 Consent to the filing of amicus briefs received from counsel for Michael J. Biestek submitted.
June 25, 2018 As Rule 34.6 provides, “If the Court schedules briefing and oral argument in a case that was governed by Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 5.2(c) or Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 49.1(c), the parties shall submit electronic versions of all prior and subsequent filings with this Court in the case, subject to [applicable] redaction rules.” Subsequent party and amicus filings in the case should now be submitted through the Court’s electronic filing system, with any necessary redactions.
August 3, 2018 Motion to dispense with printing the joint appendix filed by petitioner Michael J. Biestek.
August 24, 2018 Brief of Nancy A. Berryhill, Deputy Commissioner for Operations, Social Security Administration submitted.
August 27, 2018 Reply of Michael J. Biestek submitted.
August 27, 2018 Brief of Michael J. Biestek submitted.
August 27, 2018 Brief of petitioner Michael J. Biestek filed.
September 4, 2018 Amicus brief of NATIONAL ORGANIZATION OF SOCIAL SECURITY CLAIMANTS’ REPRESENTATIVES; AARP & AARP FOUNDATION submitted.
September 4, 2018 Amicus brief of National Association of Disability Representatives submitted.
September 4, 2018 Brief amicus curiae of National Association of Disability Representatives filed.

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