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Carr v. Saul

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Supreme Court of the United States
Carr v. Saul
Term: 2020
Important Dates
Argument: March 3, 2021
Decided: April 22, 2021
Outcome
Tenth Circuit judgment reversed and remanded
Vote
9-0
Majority
Sonia Sotomayor • Chief Justice John G. Roberts • Samuel Alito • Elena Kagan • Brett Kavanaugh • Clarence Thomas • Neil Gorsuch • Amy Coney Barrett • Stephen Breyer
Concurring
Clarence Thomas • Neil Gorsuch • Amy Coney Barrett • Stephen Breyer


Carr v. Saul is a U.S. Supreme Court case that concerned whether people who were denied Social Security disability benefits by the Social Security Administration (SSA) lose the chance to challenge the appointment of SSA administrative law judges (ALJs) in court if they do not first present Appointments Clause challenges during agency proceedings.[1] A unanimous U.S. Supreme Court ruled that issue exhaustion requirements, which say that people must bring up all legal objections in front of an agency before they can use those objections in federal court, did not apply to these Appointments Clause challenges.[2]

Justice Sonia Sotomayor delivered the opinion of the court, which gave the following three reasons people should be allowed to make Appointments Clause challenges even if they did not raise the issue during SSA proceedings:[2]

  • The SSA process at issue was not adversarial enough to require issue exhaustion in the absence of an explicit statutory or regulatory requirement
  • Agency adjudicators usually lack the technical expertise to address structural constitutional challenges
  • Court precedent says exhaustion requirements do not apply to challenges agency officials lack the power to resolve

Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a concurring opinion, joined by Justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett, agreeing with the outcome of the case but saying he would have ended his analysis with the first point, that nonadversarial agency processes do not require issue exhaustion.[2]

Justice Stephen Breyer wrote a concurring opinion agreeing with the outcome but arguing that the nonadversarial nature of an agency proceeding "is generally irrelevant to whether the ordinary rule requiring issue exhaustion ought to apply."[2]

The case was argued before the Supreme Court of the United States on March 3, 2021, during the court's October 2020-2021 term. The case came on a writ of certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. It is consolidated with Davis v. Saul.[3]

HIGHLIGHTS
  • The case: Willie Carr was denied Social Security disability benefits and lost his appeals before the Social Security Administration (SSA). While his appeal in federal court was pending, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Lucia v. SEC, in which the court held that SEC ALJs were improperly appointed. Carr added the argument to his appeal in federal court that the SSA ALJ who decided his benefits case was improperly appointed. A district court ruled in Carr's favor, but the 10th Circuit reversed the district court, arguing that Carr had to have made his Appointments Clause challenge during proceedings at the SSA and could not raise the issue for the first time in federal court.
  • The issue:
    "Whether claimants seeking disability benefits under the Social Security Act must exhaust Appointments Clause challenges before the Administrative Law Judge as a prerequisite to obtaining judicial review."[4]
  • The outcome: The U.S. Supreme Court reversed and remanded the circuit courts' decisions in the consolidated cases. The court held that people do not have to make an Appointments Clause challenge in front of the Social Security Administration before they can make that challenge in federal court.[2]


    • Click here to review the 10th Circuit's opinion in Carr v. Commissioner, SSA.

    Click here to review the 8th Circuit's opinion in Davis v. Saul.

    Why it matters: The decision allows Carr to raise an Appointments Clause challenge in federal court that he did not mention during agency proceedings, which might expand the scope of judicial review and let federal courts examine issues that did not come up during agency adjudication.[2]

    Timeline

    The following timeline details key events in this case:

    • April 22, 2021: The U.S. Supreme Court reversed and remanded the circuit courts' decisions[2]
    • March 3, 2021: The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral argument
    • November 9, 2020: The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear the case[5]
    • June 29, 2020: Willie Carr filed a petition for a writ of certiorari
    • June 15, 2020: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit ruled [1]
    • June 26, 2019: The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma ruled that the ALJ who issued the social security decision at issue was not appropriately appointed under the U.S. Constitution[6]

    Background

    Initial dispute and ruling of the district court

    Willie Earl Carr went to court seeking judicial review of a decision from the Commissioner of the Social Security Administration (SSA) to deny his application for Social Security disability benefits. One of Carr's complaints was that he believed the administrative law judge (ALJ) who decided his case was not appointed in compliance with the Appointments Clause of the U.S. Constitution. The SSA did not dispute Carr's argument against the appointment of the ALJ, but said the court should not consider his claim because he did not raise that objection during his administrative proceedings before the agency. Carr had added the appointments clause argument to his court challenge after the U.S. Supreme Court decided Lucia v. SEC, in which the court held that SEC ALJs had been improperly appointed.[6][1]

    Judge Frank McCarthy, a judge on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma, ruled in June 2019 that the ALJ who decided Carr's case was not appropriately appointed under the Appointments Clause of the U.S. Constitution and that Carr was still allowed to make that argument.[6]

    Appeal to the Tenth Circuit

    The SSA Commissioner appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. Judge Scott Matheson, delivered an opinion for a three-judge panel of the court in favor of the agency that reversed the decision of the district court. Matheson argued that Carr waived his right to make an Appointments Clause challenge because he did not raise that objection during his appeals before the agency.[1]

    The SSA did not argue that the ALJ had been properly appointed in Carr's case, only that Carr was required to exhaust his Appointments Clause challenge during his initial appeals before the agency.

    Matheson cited U.S. Supreme Court precedent and argued that Carr should have raised his Appointments Clause objections before the SSA and not for the first time in a district court. He wrote that the agency could have corrected its error if Carr raised the issue before taking the agency to court and that requiring people to exhaust issues before agencies promotes judicial and agency efficiency. Matheson argued that the "district court failed to provide adequate reasons to depart from the general principle that 'an issue must have been raised before an agency for a party to seek judicial review of agency action on that issue.'"[1]

    Appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court

    Carr filed a petition for a writ of certiorari before the U.S. Supreme Court and the court agreed to hear the case on November 9, 2020.[5]

    Appointments Clause

    See also: Article II, United States Constitution

    Article II, Section 2, Clause 2 of the United States Constitution, known as the Appointments Clause, establishes federal appointment authority as follows:

    “ [The President] shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Court of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.[7][8] ”

    Question presented

    The U.S. Supreme Court granted the petitions for writs of certiorari, consolidated the cases, and specified the following question:[4]

    Question presented:
    “ Whether claimants seeking disability benefits under the Social Security Act must exhaust Appointments Clause challenges before the Administrative Law Judge as a prerequisite to obtaining judicial review.[4][8] ”

    Outcome

    The decision of the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse the 10th Circuit's ruling and send the case back for further proceedings was unanimous.

    Justice Sonia Sotomayor delivered the opinion of the court and Justices Clarence Thomas and Stephen Breyer wrote concurring opinions.[2]

    Opinions

    Opinion of the court

    Justice Sonia Sotomayor delivered the opinion of the court, which reversed the 10th Circuit's ruling in Carr v. Saul and the 8th Circuit's ruling in Davis v. Saul. The justices held that people who dispute Social Security Administration (SSA) decisions to deny them benefits may challenge whether the agency administrative law judges (ALJs) were properly appointed in federal court even when they did not challenge those appointments during agency proceedings.[2]

    Sotomayor described U.S. Supreme Court precedent about when courts will require people to bring up all issues during agency proceedings if they want to be able to raise them in federal court. According to Sotomayor, that requirement, known as issue exhaustion, only applies when mandated by law, regulation, or when the agency process resembles normal adversarial proceedings one sees in a courtroom. She held that the SSA process at issue was not adversarial enough to require issue exhaustion.[2]

    Sotomayor also held that the following two other factors made it improper to require issue exhaustion:[2]

    • "Agency adjudications are generally ill-suited to address structural constitutional challenges, which usually fall outside the adjudicators' areas of technical expertise"
    • The U.S. Supreme court "has consistently recognized a futility exception to exhaustion requirements."

    She wrote, "Both considerations apply fully here: Petitioners assert purely constitutional claims about which SSA ALJs have no special expertise and for which they can provide no relief."[2]

    Concurring opinions

    Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a concurring opinion, joined by Justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett, agreeing with the majority that "the nonadversarial nature of an agency proceeding generally gives good reason to refrain from creating an issue-exhaustion requirement." Thomas would have ended the majority's analysis at that point.[2]

    Justice Stephen Breyer wrote a concurring opinion agreeing with the outcome of the case but arguing that the nonadversarial nature of an agency proceeding "is generally irrelevant to whether the ordinary rule requiring issue exhaustion ought to apply."[2]

    Text of the opinion

    Read the full opinion here.

    Oral argument

    Audio

    Audio of oral argument:[9]



    Transcript

    Commentary about the case

    This section contains a selection of opinions from scholars, journalists, and others about the potential implications of this court case.

    Post-decision commentary

    Court decision in Carr was the only avenue to resolve this dispute

    Law professor Ronald Mann argued that the decision in Carr v. Saul "is notable because the particular issue the claimants failed to raise before the agency was the argument that the agency’s judges were appointed in violation of the appointments clause of the Constitution – an argument that all agree is correct. So a refusal to allow this argument would have left the claimants with no remedy for the admittedly unconstitutional appointment of the administrative law judges that rejected their Social Security claims."[10]

    Carr decision will allow Article III courts to enforce the Constitution

    "Carr is one of several cases that arose in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s 2018 decision in Lucia v. SEC [...] The Court’s decision in Carr makes certain that Article III courts will serve as a constitutional backstop and step in to enforce the Constitution when agencies can’t or won’t.," according to a press release from the New Civil Liberties Alliance, a public-interest law litigation center that aims, according to its website, "to defend constitutional freedoms—primarily against the Administrative State."[11][12]

    Additional reading


    See also

    External links

    Footnotes

    1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Casetext, "Carr v. Comm'r, SSA," June 15, 2020
    2. ↑ 2.00 2.01 2.02 2.03 2.04 2.05 2.06 2.07 2.08 2.09 2.10 2.11 2.12 2.13 U.S. Supreme Court, "Carr v. Saul, Opinion," April 22, 2021
    3. ↑ Davis v. Saul came on a writ of certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit. The docket number was 20-105.
    4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 U.S. Supreme Court, "Carr v. Saul, Question Presented," accessed November 9, 2020
    5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 U.S. Supreme Court, "Order List, Monday, November 9, 2020," accessed November 9, 2020
    6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Casetext, "Willie C. v. Saul," June 26, 2019
    7. ↑ Justia, "The Removal Power," accessed October 4, 2018
    8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
    9. ↑ U.S. Supreme Court, "Oral Argument - Audio, Carr v. Saul," accessed March 3, 2021
    10. ↑ SCOTUSblog, "Justices reject issue-exhaustion requirement for Social Security claimants," April 22, 2021
    11. ↑ New Civil Liberties Alliance, "In Victory for NCLA, Supreme Court Unanimously Rejects “Issue Exhaustion” Requirement before ALJ," April 22, 2021
    12. ↑ New Civil Liberties Alliance, "Mission," accessed June 1, 2021
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