Court Opinion

ID: 9493324
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:05:04.865454+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:55:46.983428
License: Public Domain

BATCHELDER, Circuit Judge,
concurring in the judgment.
I concur in the majority’s disposition of this case. I do not concur, however, in the majority’s discussion of the “entirely collateral” exception. To the extent that this exception survives the Supreme Court’s recent pronouncements in Shalala v. Illinois Council on Long Term Care, Inc., 529 U.S. 1, 120 S.Ct. 1084, 146 L.Ed.2d 1 (2000), it is clear that it would apply only when a litigant satisfies a “nonwaivable and nonexcusable requirement” of initial presentation of its claim to the appropriate agency. Beechknoll did not satisfy this requirement in this case. That is the end of the matter.
In Illinois Council, the Supreme Court stated that two of its earlier cases, Weinberger v. Salfi, 422 U.S. 749, 95 S.Ct. 2457, 45 L.Ed.2d 522 (1975), and Heckler v. Ringer, 466 U.S. 602, 104 S.Ct. 2013, 80 L.Ed.2d 622 (1984), “foreclose distinctions based upon ... the ‘collateral’ versus ‘non-collateral’ nature of the issues.... ” Illinois Council, 529 U.S. at -, 120 S.Ct. at 1094. When the plaintiff in Illinois Council attempted to distinguish those cases on the basis of Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319, 96 S.Ct. 893, 47 L.Ed.2d 18 (1976), the Court remarked:
Eldridge, however, is a case in which the Court found that the respondent had followed the special review procedures set forth in § 405(g), thereby complying *368with, rather than disregarding, the strictures of § 405(h). The Court characterized the constitutional issue the respondent raised as “collateral” to his claim for benefits, but it did so as a basis for requiring the agency to excuse, where the agency would not do so on its own, some (but not all) of the procedural steps set forth in § 405(g). The Court nonetheless held that § 405(g) contains the nonwaivable and nonexcusable requirement that an individual present a claim to the agency before raising it in court. The Council has not done so here, and thus cannot establish jurisdiction under § 405(g).
Illinois Council, 529 U.S. at -, 120 S.Ct. at 1094 (citations omitted).
Here, Beechknoll did not request a hearing before HHS until July 20, 1999, see J.A. 356, that is, after it had already filed its motion for a temporary restraining order in the district court, see J.A. 28. Thus, Beechknoll failed to satisfy “the nonwaiva-ble and nonexcusable requirement that an individual present a claim to the agency before raising it in court.” Illinois Council, 529 U.S. at -, 120 S.Ct. at 1094. This failure deprived the district court of subject matter jurisdiction.
The majority nevertheless asserts that, “Like Eldridge, Beechknoll’s second argument, that it is entitled to a pre-termi-nation hearing under the Due Process Clause, involves Beechknoll’s procedural constitutional rights and is ‘entirely collateral’ from its substantive challenge to the Secretary’s termination decision.” Ante at 364. The majority makes this assertion without considering — as the Eldridge Court did — whether the plaintiff satisfied the nonwaivable jurisdictional element under § 405(g). In so doing, the majority apparently means to suggest that the “nonwaivable and nonexcusable” requirement that an individual present a claim to the agency before raising it in court is in fact both waivable and excusable in cases in which the individual seeks preliminary injunctive relief.
Nothing in the Supreme Court’s cases supports this rather counterintuitive formulation. Indeed, Illinois Council makes clear that the jurisdictional bar is both uncomplicated and encompassing. “... Congress may well have concluded that a universal obligation to present a legal claim first to HHS, though postponing review in some cases, would produce speedier, as well as better review overall. And this Court crossed the relevant bridge long ago when it held that Congress, in both the Social Security Act and the Medicare Act, insisted upon an initial presentation of the matter to the agency.” Illinois Council, 529 U.S. at -, 120 S.Ct. at 1097. In view of this language, I cannot join in the majority’s stealthy attempt to carve off a class of cases in which initial presentation of a claim to the agency is not required.