GOVERNMENT LAWYERS FOR SSA ALLEGEDLY MISUSE EVIDENCE IN OVER 700 DISABILITY CLAIMS

Four government lawyers employed by the SSA office in Des Moines Iowa have been accused of misusing expert witness testimony in over 700 disability claims at the direction of a SSA Administrative Law Judge presiding over the cases. That judge has since died.

In SSA disability claims, the SSA judge uses experts to testify as to the claimant’s ability to work. The SSA deceased judge; J. Michael Johnson, allegedly instructed the SSA lawyers to use the expert testimony heard in one disability claim and later apply it to over 700 other, completely non-related claims. Neither the SSA nor the Judge revealed to the disability claimants that the SSA was relying on expert testimony not even related to their individual claim. The four SSA lawyers face potential fines of almost $4 million dollars.

Jonathan Lasher, with the SSA Office of Inspector General, stated that the SSA is “not aware that it is a generally accepted practice to use evidence from one case in other cases”. The Inspector General’s office has twice tried to bring criminal prosecutions against the SSA employees, but has been denied each time by different government jurisdictions. The federal employee’s union representative has claimed no laws were broken and that the SSA itself endorses the practice of using evidence from one case in other cases.

There is no idea of whether this misuse of expert testimony is limited to the hundreds of claims in Iowa or if it impacts far across the country into the hundreds of thousands of SSA disability claims being handled by other SSA judges and SSA lawyers.