Court Opinion

ID: 9753585
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 19:19:27.785481+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:27:38.624426
License: Public Domain

SCHWELB, Senior Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
I agree with the court that the award of unemployment compensation in this case amounts “in practical effect, [to] a default judgment [against the United States], albeit in an unliquidated amountf,]” ante, at 606, and that in light of the authorities cited in the per curiam opinion, the award must be vacated and a hearing held on the merits of Ms. Webb’s claim. I am also fully in accord with most of the analysis in *607the opinion, of which I am a co-author. I part company with my colleagues, however, insofar as they order the OAH to conduct “further proceedings regarding the OMB’s constitutional notice contention .... ” Ante at 606.
I do not believe that any useful purpose would be served by such proceedings. In what I view as the unlikely event that the OMB were to prevail on that issue, it would be entitled to a hearing on the merits of Ms. Webb’s claim. But even if the OAH were to reject the OMB’s claim of lack of constitutionally adequate notice, the OMB would, pursuant to the authorities cited by the court, and in conformity with the court’s own analysis, still be entitled to a hearing on the merits. The court is thus ordering a hearing on an issue which, regardless of how it is resolved, will make absolutely no difference to the outcome of Ms. Webb’s claim for unemployment compensation.
Further, the OMB is now represented by the United States Attorney, and it will assuredly be given proper and timely notice of the hearing that is to be held after remand. The compensation award to Ms. Webb at the original hearing on December 2, 2009, as to which the OMB claims constitutionally deficient notice, has now been set aside by this court. Accordingly, any question as to the sufficiency vel non of the notice of the 2009 hearing has been rendered entirely academic.
Moreover, even if there were some hypothetical reason for the OAH to evaluate the OMB’s contention that it received constitutionally insufficient notice of the originally scheduled hearing, this would not be an appropriate occasion to examine the issue. Ms. Webb is not represented by counsel, and she did not participate at all in the proceedings before this court. There is no incentive for her, on remand, to litigate a question which will not affect her right to unemployment compensation, or to retain counsel for that purpose. There would realistically be no adversarial crossing of swords in relation to the constitutional contention presented by the OMB, and the case would therefore lack “that clear concreteness provided when a question emerges precisely framed and necessary for decision from a clash of adversary argument exploring every aspect of a multifaceted situation embracing conflicting and demanding interests.... ” United States v. Fruehauf, 365 U.S. 146, 157, 81 S.Ct. 547, 5 L.Ed.2d 476 (1961). I therefore respectfully dissent from the majority’s direction to the OAH to hold a hearing on the OMB’s claim that it did not receive adequate notice of Ms. Webb’s claim.