stating that the Social Security Act “creates a scheme in which a district court may conduct a 16 restricted review of the [Commissioner’s] findings and may remand a case for new findings, but this scheme makes no provision for a district court to make any findings of its own”
How later courts described this case
- stating that the Social Security Act “creates a scheme in which a district court may conduct a 16 restricted review of the [Commissioner’s] findings and may remand a case for new findings, but this scheme makes no provision for a district court to make any findings of its own”
- ruling that district courts lack the authority to make independent findings of fact regarding ALJ bias and that the district court may only review the Secretary's findings concerning ALJ bias under 42 U.S.C. § 405(g)
- noting threat to administrative law judges and serious interference with ability to decide cases solely on evidence and law if thought process subject to subsequent inquiry; “[i]t has long been recognized that attempts to probe the thought and decision making processes of judges ... are generally improper”
- stating that “efforts to probe the mind of an ALJ, if allowed, would pose a substantial threat to the administrative process”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
SUR PETITION FOR REHEARING
April 7, 1993.
Present: SLOVITER, Chief Judge, BECKER, STAPLETON, MANSMANN, GREENBERG, HUTCHINSON, SCIRICA, COWEN, NYGAARD, ALITO, ROTH and LEWIS, Circuit Judges.
The petition for rehearing filed by appellant in the above-entitled case having been submitted to the judges who participated in the decision of this court and to all the other available circuit judges of the circuit in regular active service, and no judge who concurred in the decision having asked for rehearing, and a majority of the circuit judges of the circuit in regular active service not having voted for rehearing by the Court in banc, the petition for rehearing is denied.