Court Opinion

ID: 9474338
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 04:55:01.6213+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:44:02.204612
License: Public Domain

*1258POSNER, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
The appellant has asked us to reverse the district court — which affirmed the denial of the appellant’s application for social security benefits — on grounds that my brethren correctly find to be without merit. That ought to be the end of the case. But instead my brethren reverse, and send the case back to the social security administration because of two errors in the administrative law judge’s opinion. The vocational expert listed jobs that involve light rather than, as the administrative law judge thought, sedentary work; and the administrative law judge failed to take into account the fact that the applicant is not only of advanced age but is close to retirement, and thé regulations distinguish between these two statuses. Neither ground was raised by the applicant (who is represented by counsel) at any stage in these proceedings — not before the administrative law judge, not before the appeals council, not before the district court, not in his brief in this court, not at oral argument. The government has had no opportunity to comment on these grounds; but a more basic objection to what my brethren have done is that grounds for reversal that are not raised are waived, especially when the case involves review of administrative action and the grounds were not presented to the administrative agency either.
This court has in recent years firmly and repeatedly abjured the practice of reversing decisions on grounds not preserved by the appellant. See, e.g., General Motors Acceptance Corp. v. Central Nat’l Bank of Mattoon, 773 F.2d 771, 778 n. 5 (7th Cir.1985); Gumz v. Morrissette, 772 F.2d 1395, 1399 n. 3 (7th Cir.1985); Spanish Action Comm, of Chicago v. City of Chicago, 766 F.2d 315, 319 (7th Cir.1985); City of Chicago v. U.S. Dept, of Labor, 753 F.2d 606, 607 n. 1 (7th Cir.1985); Walker v. Maccabees Mutual Life Ins. Co., 753 F.2d 599, 602 (7th Cir.1985); Parrett v. City of Connersville, 737 F.2d 690, 698 (7th Cir. *12591984). Twice recently we refused to consider a ground raised for the first time in the appellant’s reply brief, see Christmas v. Sanders, 759 F.2d 1284, 1291-92 (7th Cir.1985); Beerly v. Department of the Treasury, 768 F.2d 942, 949 (7th Cir.1985); here it was never raised. In Hershinov v. Bonamarte, 735 F.2d 264, 266 (7th Cir.1984), we refused to consider a ground for reversal that the appellant had raised but that had been “presented in so perfunctory and underdeveloped a manner in his brief that we shall not consider it.” Carducci v. Regan, 714 F.2d 171, 177 (D.C.Cir.1983), is a similar case, where the court, in refusing to consider the appellant’s “asserted but unanalyzed” claim, remarked, as if with the present case in mind, “The premise of our adversarial system is that appellate courts do not sit as self-directed boards of legal inquiry and research, but essentially as arbiters of legal questions presented and argued by the parties before them.” But at least in that case the question had been raised; here it was never raised. The logic of my brethren’s position is that an appellant can file a brief with us which says in its entirety, “I would like you to reverse, and I rely on you to discover whether there are grounds for reversal.” Granted, some of the cases I have cited say that in exceptional circumstances the court may reverse on a ground not raised in timely fashion, even if it is not a jurisdictional ground. But instances of this are very rare, and my brethren point to no exceptional circumstances in the present case.
The principle that grounds for reversal not raised are waived is not one from which judicial review of denials of social security disability benefits is exempt. The Tenth Circuit recently held that an applicant for social security disability benefits who fails to present a ground for reversing the denial of benefits in the district court is barred from raising it in the court of appeals. See Channel v. Heckler, 747 F.2d 577, 579 n. 2 (10th Cir.1984). The decision today thus creates a conflict with the Tenth Circuit. It also ignores the principle, a corollary of the requirement of exhaustion of administrative remedies, that a court may not set aside the decision of an administrative agency on a ground not presented to the agency. See, e.g., Unemployment Compensation Comm’n v. Aragon, 329 U.S. 143, 155, 67 S.Ct. 245, 251, 91 L.Ed. 136 (1946); Myron v. Chicoine, 678 F.2d 727, 731-32 (7th Cir.1982); Duncanson-Harrelson Co. v. Director, Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs, 644 F.2d 827, 832 (9th Cir.1981); Director, Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs v. North Am. Coal Corp., 626 F.2d 1137, 1143 (3d Cir.1980). As with the cognate principle governing our review of district court judgments, there is an exception for special circumstances (notice that both principles are violated by the majority decision in this case), see, e.g., McKart v. United States, 395 U.S. 185, 196-97, 89 S.Ct. 1657, 1663-65, 23 L.Ed.2d 194 (1969), but no attempt has been made to bring this case within the exception. And again it cannot be argued that social security cases are somehow exempt. An applicant for social security benefits must present his reasons for thinking he is entitled to such benefits to the social security administration; if he does not, he cannot use them as grounds in court for upsetting the denial of benefits. We so held in Herd v. Folsom, 231 F.2d 276, 278-79 (7th Cir.1956), a decision my brethren bury today without the usual obsequies — without, that is to say, even attempting to distinguish it; without, indeed, so much as citing it. See also Cross v. Finch, 427 F.2d 406, 408 (5th Cir.1970).
I wonder in what sense we can claim to have an adversarial system of justice if appellate judges conceive their duty to be to search the record in the trial court or the administrative agency for errors that the appellant’s counsel missed, and to reverse if any are found. Appellants’ counsel will have less incentive to do a thorough job; and appellees’ counsel will feel obliged to respond to grounds not raised by the appellant, lest the appellate court advance the ground on its own initiative and reverse without benefit of the appellee’s views. Maybe an adversarial system of justice is not the best system there is, either in gen*1260eral or with particular reference to judicial review of denials of social security disability benefits. (The system is not adversarial at the administrative level.) I have no doubt that we have much to learn from the Continental systems of procedure, which are less adversarial than ours. But the adversarial system is the system we have, and ad hoc modifications which cast an appellate judge, law clerk, or staff attorney in the role of juge destruction are unlikely to improve the system; they are likely, in fact, to weaken it, for the reasons I have mentioned. Granted, the premises of an adversarial system must be modified when the appellant is a criminal defendant, or is not represented by counsel; but neither of these conditions obtains here. Granted, too, disappointed applicants for social security disability benefits are for the most part rather pathetic people whose plight tugs at the judicial heartstrings; but we are not authorized to give a fuller measure of justice to one class of lawyer-represented civil appellants than to others on grounds of sentiment or sympathy, and it is always well to bear in mind that the payment of government benefits to one applicant reduces the public moneys available for other, perhaps equally worthy, causes.
I would affirm.