Complaint For Judicial Review of Social Security Appeals Council Decision - Improper Legal Standards Applied

If your Social Security Disability benefits are denied again after you have a hearing before an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ), you have the option of appealing your case to the Appeals Council. You must file for an appeal with the Appeals Council within 60 days of receiving your administrative hearing decision.

How Long Does the Appeals Council Take? As with every other step of the disability process, there is no way to know. Sometimes, cases wait as long as 18-24 months for a decision of some kind to be made. Other times, Appeals Council decisions can be made in as little as three months.

Can A Fully Favorable Decision Be Reversed? The Appeals Council can review any decision made by an ALJfavorable or unfavorable. While rare, the Appeals Council can find the ALJ made an error and reverse a fully favorable decision. The claimant can submit additional evidence or comment to support the ALJ's decision.

Fewer people still decide to continue pursuing disability benefits after an ALJ hearing and with varying success. Statistics indicate that the Appeals Council approves only 13 percent of cases reviewed, while those who file lawsuits in federal district court may have up to a 40 percent chance of prevailing.

Once the administrative law judge has made his or her decision, the decision is actually written by staff decision writers at the hearing office and then reviewed by the judge. When the judge is ready to issue the decision, your disability file may be sent to the Social Security office from where it originated.

It takes about 100 days to get a decision in the reconsideration stage of the appeals process. But unfortunately, only about 3% of people who file an appeal win at this stage. If you are denied again at this stage, you will have 60 days to request a hearing with an administrative law judge.

Technically, yes, a favorable ALJ decision (one that grants benefits) after a disability hearing can be overturned by the Appeals Council. The Appeals Council can choose to review any ALJ decisions for review, and the Appeals Council can choose to grant benefits that an ALJ denied or deny benefits that an ALJ granted.

This means that your Social Security case is going to be sent back to the Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) to make another decision.This means you have lost the appeal as the Federal Court is agreeing with the ALJ's decision. A Federal Judge can also decide to reverse the decision made by the ALJ which means you won.

A reconsideration appeal can usually be decided in as little as four weeks or as long as twelve weeks; whereas an application for disability can take as long as six months (usually, if it takes this long it is due to difficulties in procuring medical records from various doctors and other medical providers).