Court Opinion

ID: 9485793
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 11:30:04.420554+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:51:21.656688
License: Public Domain

PREGERSON,
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
I concur in the result reached by the majority opinion in Part I and Part III. But I disagree with the result the majority reaches in Part II, which reverses the district court’s decision to toll the 60-day filing requirement of 42 U.S.C. § 405(g).1 I believe that the district court was well within its discretion by ruling that the exhaustion requirement was waived and that the 60-day limitations period was tolled for all claimants whose Supplemental Security Income (“SSI”) payments were illegally reduced based on their receipt of in-kind loans.
I.
There are four categories of claimants covered by the district court’s class definition:
(a) Claimants who had not fully exhausted their administrative remedies at the time the suit was filed, but who could still obtain administrative review.
(b) Claimants who had not fully exhausted their administrative remedies, but whose claims had “lapsed,” i.e., their opportunity to continue in the administrative process was foreclosed as untimely.
(c) Claimants who had fully exhausted their administrative remedies, i.e., who had obtained final decisions from the Secretary, but who had not filed suits in the district court within 60 days of the final decisions.
(d) Claimants who obtained final decisions within 60 days of filing suit in district court.
A.
The claimants in category (a) are covered by Part I of the majority opinion and are properly included in the class definition. Though not specifically addressed in the majority opinion, claimants in category (d) are properly included in the class because they have satisfied both the exhaustion requirement and the 60-day filing requirement.
B.
Claimants in category (b) were included in the class by the district court. Under Part II of the majority opinion these claimants are excluded from the class definition. In my view, they should be included.
We specifically considered this category of claimants in Briggs I:
Although the Secretary seems to treat it as a separate requirement, our decision that the class members were not obliged to obtain a “final decision.” from the agency before proceeding to district court also disposes of the requirement that the plaintiffs’ complaint be filed within 60 days of that final decision_ It would be absurd, and would require the impossible, for us to hold that a plaintiff must file his complaint within 60 days of the Secretary’s final decision in a proceeding to which the claimant was a party when we are not *926requiring the claimant to obtain such a decision in the first place.
Briggs I, 886 F.2d at 1141 n. 8.
Part I of the majority opinion holds that claimants in category (a), i.e., claimants who could timely pursue their administrative remedies, are not required to satisfy the exhaustion requirement. Consequently, to be consistent, we must also permit claimants in category (b), whose time to pursue administrative remedies had lapsed, to join the class. To do otherwise would produce an anomalous result. The majority’s holding not to toll the 60-day statute of limitations for claimants in category (b) requires those claimants to file a lawsuit within 60 days of a final decision they are not required to obtain. Under Briggs I, these claimants should be included in the class definition. Moreover, I do not believe that the absurdity identified in Briggs I is any less so because the relief sought here is retroactive rather than prospective. See majority opinion at 923.
C.
Finally, Part II of the majority opinion would also exclude claimants in category (c): claimants who had exhausted their administrative remedies, but failed to file a federal action within 60 days of the Secretary’s final decision. I disagree with this result. In my view, under City of New York, 476 U.S. 467, 106 S.Ct. 2022, once a court decides to include claimants in category (b), as I have suggested we must do here, it necessarily follows that claimants in category (c) should be included in the class definition.
In Briggs I, there were no claimants in the class who had received a final decision under § 405(g) because, under the Secretary’s 90-day policy for withholding benefits at issue in that case, their claims would have become moot before such a decision could have been obtained. Briggs I, 886 F.2d at 1141. Therefore, in Briggs I, we did not deal with claimants who fit category (c). In City of New York, however, the Supreme Court treated those claimants who had obtained a final decision more than 60 days before the suit was filed exactly the same as claimants who failed to obtain a final decision and whose opportunity to obtain a final decision was foreclosed because they failed to meet an intermediate administrative time limit. 476 U.S. at 482, 106 S.Ct. at 2031. See Bailey v. Sullivan, 885 F.2d 52, 64 (3rd Cir.1989) (“Furthermore, City of New York clearly states that claimants who have allowed a claim to become final before the filing of a class action through failure to exhaust administrative remedies stand on the same footing as claimants who have received a final agency determination but have failed to seek judicial review.”). To treat these two categories of claimants differently, i.e., include one category, but exclude the other, would produce an untenable result. We would be helping claimants who quit the process much earlier and abandoning claimants who had stuck with the process longer, but who gave up their pursuit before filing an action in federal court. Such a result would be an inappropriate application of a statute “that Congress designed to be ‘unusually protective’ of claimants.” City of New York, 476 U.S. at 480, 106 S.Ct. at 2030 (quoting Heckler v. Day, 467 U.S. 104, 106, 104 S.Ct. 2249, 2251, 81 L.Ed.2d 88 (1984)).
Therefore, the district court was correct in applying our opinion in Briggs I to the tolling determination for all claimants as the logical next step in the Briggs I analysis. The district court, therefore, properly exercised its discretion by including claimants in the class whose time period for administrative or judicial review had passed — categories (b) and (c).2
*927II.
In conclusion, I agree with the majority opinion that we should affirm the district court’s holding that the exhaustion requirement was waived. But under Briggs I, if we uphold a waiver of the exhaustion requirement, to be consistent, we must also uphold the district court’s ruling to toll the 60-day requirement for those claimants whose time to obtain a final decision had expired. Under City of New York, we then must treat those claimants who obtained a final decision, but who did not file an action within 60 days, the same as those for whom the time to obtain a final decision had expired. Therefore, the district court did not abuse its discretion by holding that the exhaustion requirement was waived and the 60-day limitations period was tolled for all claimants who had been illegally denied SSI benefits.
Accordingly, I concur in the result reached in Part I and Part III, but I respectfully dissent from the result reached in Part II.

. Tide 42 U.S.C. § 405(g) provides that a claimant may obtain judicial review of a Secretary’s decision by filing a' civil action in district court within 60 days after the Secretary mails a "final decision” to the claimant. The 60-day requirement constitutes a period of limitations. Bowen v. City of New York, 476 U.S. 467, 478, 106 S.Ct. 2022, 2029, 90 L.Ed.2d 462 (1986). The final decision requirement consists of two elements: presentment of the claim to the Secretary and exhaustion of administrative remedies. Briggs v. Sullivan, 886 F.2d 1132, 1138 (9th Cir.1989) (Briggs I).

. The majority appears to be concerned with the "sweeping” relief that the district court has ordered, i.e., for all claimants, since 1978, whose SSI benefits have been denied, terminated, or reduced because of the Secretary's illegal policy of treating in-kind loans differently from cash loans. First, the parties agree that a reasonable estimate of the number of claimants in this class is 50 to 250. Second, the Social Security Administration was on notice as of at least 1986, when the 5th Circuit decided Hickman v. Sullivan, 803 F.2d 1377 (5th Cir.1986), that its policy was illegal. We should not tolerate a policy under which the Secretary continues to reduce benefits illegally. At the very least, all claimants whose benefits were reduced after the Hickman decision should be included in the class definition regardless of whether they timely pursued their administrative and judicial remedies.