Camille Brooks v. Kilolo Kijakazi

USCA4 Appeal: 21-2048 Doc: 41 Filed: 02/22/2023 Pg: 1 of 18

PUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 21-2048

CAMILLE M. BROOKS,

Plaintiff - Appellant,

v.

KILOLO KIJAKAZI, Acting Commissioner of Social Security,

Defendant - Appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, at Norfolk. Mark S. Davis, Chief District Judge. (2:20-cv-00262-MSD-DEM)

Argued: October 26, 2022 Decided: February 22, 2023

Before KING and HEYTENS, Circuit Judges, and Sherri A. LYDON, United States District Judge for the District of South Carolina, sitting by designation.

Vacated and remanded by published opinion. Judge King wrote the opinion, in which Judge Heytens and Judge Lydon joined.

ARGUED: David Fallon Chermol, CHERMOL & FISHMAN, LLC, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for Appellant. Joshua Marc Salzman, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C.; Garry Daniel Hartlieb, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Washington, D.C., for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Jessica D. Aber, United States Attorney, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Richmond, Virginia, for Appellee.

USCA4 Appeal: 21-2048 Doc: 41 Filed: 02/22/2023 Pg: 2 of 18

KING, Circuit Judge:

Plaintiff Camille Brooks appeals from the 2021 opinion of the district court in the

Eastern District of Virginia affirming the final decision of defendant Kijakazi, as the Acting

Commissioner of Social Security, which denied Brooks’s claim for disability benefits. See

Brooks v. Kijakazi, No. 2:20-cv-00262 (E.D. Va. Sept. 15, 2021), ECF No. 25 (the

“Opinion”). 1 As explained herein, we agree with Brooks’s appellate contention that,

pursuant to the Supreme Court’s 2018 decision in Lucia v. SEC, 138 S. Ct. 2044 (2018),

the administrative law judge (“ALJ Bright”) who rendered the Commissioner’s final

decision did so in contravention of the Constitution’s Appointments Clause. 2 Accordingly,

without resolving the merits contentions that Brooks also pursues on appeal, we vacate the

judgment of the district court and direct a remand to the Commissioner for a new and

plenary hearing on Brooks’s disability benefits claim, to be conducted before a different

and properly appointed ALJ.

1 Hereinafter, we will refer to the defendant Acting Commissioner of Social Security simply as “the Commissioner.” 2 The Appointments Clause of the Constitution of the United States is found at Article II, Section 2, Clause 2, and provides, in haec verba, that the President

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 Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.

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I.

A.

Brooks applied for Social Security disability benefits in September 2015, alleging

that she had been disabled since June 2014 due to glaucoma, arthritis, dry eye disease,

migraines, degenerative disc disease, complications from spinal surgery, and a torn rotator

cuff. After her disability benefits claim was denied at the initial and reconsideration levels,

Brooks requested an administrative hearing before an ALJ of the Social Security

Administration (the “Agency”), and a hearing was convened and conducted by ALJ Bright

in January 2018. On March 15, 2018, ALJ Bright denied Brooks’s claim, ruling that,

although Brooks suffered from a series of medically severe impairments, she possessed

sufficiently transferable job skills to enable her to hold positions that were available “in

significant numbers in the national economy.” See A.R. 139 (the “2018 ALJ Decision”). 3

Brooks’s ability to work in those positions, ALJ Bright explained, barred a finding of

“disability” status under the Social Security Act. Brooks promptly appealed the 2018 ALJ

Decision to the Agency’s Appeals Council.

In June 2018, while Brooks’s administrative appeal was pending before the Appeals

Council, the Supreme Court decided Lucia v. SEC — the decision of the Court that

underpins our ruling today — which recognized that the ALJs of the Securities and

Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) are “inferior Officers” of the United States within the

3 Citations herein to “A.R. __” refer to the contents of the Administrative Record in this appeal.

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meaning of the Appointments Clause. See 138 S. Ct. 2044, 2051, 2055 (2018) (citing U.S.

Const. art. II, § 2, cl. 2). Because the Appointments Clause requires such “inferior

Officers” to be appointed by either the President, a court of law, or the head of an executive

department, the Lucia Court ruled that the SEC ALJ overseeing the administrative

proceedings at issue — who had been appointed by SEC staff members — “lacked

constitutional authority to do his job.” Id. at 2050. Accordingly, the Court remanded

Lucia’s case to the SEC for a new hearing before a different and properly appointed ALJ.

On July 16, 2018, recognizing that Agency ALJs were — like the SEC ALJs —

selected by the Agency staff, the Commissioner responded to the Supreme Court’s Lucia

decision by “ratif[ying] the appointments of [the Agency’s] ALJs” and “approv[ing] those

appointments as her own” — including, as relevant here, the appointment of ALJ Bright.

See 84 Fed. Reg. 9582, 9583 (Mar. 15, 2019). In early 2019, the Agency issued guidance

to its Appeals Council directing that, in response to timely raised Appointments Clause

challenges to pre-ratification ALJ decisions, the Council should “vacate the hearing

decision” and “remand the case to an ALJ other than the ALJ who issued the decision under

review.” Id. Of great importance, the parties to this appeal do not dispute that, pursuant

to Lucia, the denial of Brooks’s disability benefits claim in the 2018 ALJ Decision was

invalid — owing to ALJ Bright’s then-unconstitutional appointment.

On October 24, 2018, after granting Brooks’s request for review, the Agency’s

Appeals Council vacated the 2018 ALJ Decision that denied Brooks’s disability benefits

claim and remanded her case for further proceedings. Brooks had not theretofore presented

the Appeals Council with an Appointments Clause challenge, however, and the Council *5 USCA4 Appeal: 21-2048 Doc: 41 Filed: 02/22/2023 Pg: 5 of 18

did not address the Appointments Clause issue or the Supreme Court’s Lucia decision.

Rather, the Council identified potential flaws in the evidence provided by a vocational

expert regarding Brooks’s transferable job skills, and it consequently remanded Brooks’s

disability benefits claim to ALJ Bright on that basis.

With Brooks’s disability benefits claim having been returned from the Appeals

Council, ALJ Bright — with a post-Lucia appointment in hand and having been duly

ratified by the Commissioner — conducted another hearing on Brooks’s claim and received

evidence from a new vocational expert. On April 25, 2019, ALJ Bright once again ruled

that Brooks was not “disabled” and denied her disability claim, concluding that Brooks

possessed the residual functional capacity to perform “light work” and could perform her

“sedentary[] and light” past relevant work as an assistant museum director. See A.R. 20,

24 (the “2019 ALJ Decision”). On March 27, 2020, the Appeals Council denied review of

the 2019 ALJ Decision, making that Decision the “final decision of the Commissioner,”

and rendering it eligible for judicial review pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 405(g).

B.

1.

Brooks initiated this civil action in the Eastern District of Virginia on May 21, 2020,

alleging that the 2019 ALJ Decision was not supported by substantial evidence and, in turn,

requesting an award of disability benefits or a remand to the Agency “for further *6 USCA4 Appeal: 21-2048 Doc: 41 Filed: 02/22/2023 Pg: 6 of 18

development and analysis.” See J.A. 20. 4 By her complaint and ensuing motion for

summary judgment, Brooks maintained that (1) ALJ Bright had failed to resolve

contradictory evidence from the two vocational experts; (2) ALJ Bright had failed to

account for Brooks’s mild mental functional limitations in determining her residual

functional capacity; and also (3) that, under Lucia, the 2019 ALJ Decision was fatally

tainted by the undisputed Appointments Clause defect underlying the 2018 ALJ Decision.

2.

In a Report and Recommendation issued in July 2021 (the “R&R”), a magistrate

judge in the Eastern District of Virginia recommended that the district court grant the

Commissioner’s cross-motion for summary judgment and affirm the 2019 ALJ Decision.

See Brooks v. Kijakazi, No. 2:20-cv-00262 (E.D. Va. July 16, 2021), ECF No. 21. 5 After

resolving that ALJ Bright had properly relied on the vocational expert’s testimony in the

2019 hearing and that Brooks’s mental limitations were adequately evaluated in ALJ

Bright’s analysis, the R&R assessed Brooks’s Appointments Clause challenge. In that

regard, the R&R recognized that, although Brooks had failed to raise her Appointments

Clause contention in the administrative proceedings, the Supreme Court’s 2021 decision

in Carr v. Saul had concluded that Social Security claimants were not required to raise

Appointments Clause challenges before the Agency in order to preserve that constitutional

4 Citations herein to “J.A. __” refer to the contents of the Joint Appendix filed by the parties in this appeal. 5 The district court had referred Brooks’s claims to the magistrate judge pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1)(B).

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issue for review in federal court. See 141 S. Ct. 1352, 1356 (2021). Accordingly, pursuant

to Carr, Brooks had interposed a “timely challenge to the constitutional validity of the

appointment of [the] officer who adjudicate[d] [her] case,” in that she was pursuing her

Appointments Clause claim in her federal court proceedings. See Lucia, 138 S. Ct. at 2055.

Nevertheless, the R&R recommended to the district court that the 2019 ALJ

Decision was not fatally flawed by the Appointments Clause error. The R&R reasoned

that, although the 2018 adjudication of Brooks’s disability benefits claim was

constitutionally infirm, there was no need for a different ALJ to have adjudicated Brooks’s

claim on remand from the Appeals Council post-Lucia. According to the R&R, the Council

had vacated the 2018 ALJ Decision in view of “a specific evidentiary defect” — and not

because of the Appointments Clause defect. See R&R 24. The R&R recognized that the

Supreme Court had explained in Lucia that the remedy for an Appointments Clause

violation was chosen in part out of concern that an illegally appointed ALJ could not “be

expected to consider the matter as though he had not adjudicated it before.” Id. (quoting

Lucia, 138 S. Ct. at 2055). Because the 2018 ALJ Decision was vacated on a merits-based

issue, however, the R&R resolved that “the concern animating the Supreme Court’s

remand order in Lucia is not present,” and thus that Lucia’s remedy of remand to a different

ALJ was inapplicable and inappropriate. Id. at 25.

3.

By its Opinion of September 15, 2021, the district court adopted the R&R in full,

granted the Commissioner’s motion for summary judgment, denied Brooks’s summary

judgment motion, and affirmed the Agency’s denial of Brooks’s disability benefits claim. *8 USCA4 Appeal: 21-2048 Doc: 41 Filed: 02/22/2023 Pg: 8 of 18

The court rebuffed Brooks’s objections to the R&R, concluding that her merits-related

challenges to the 2019 ALJ Decision failed.

In assessing Brooks’s Appointments Clause challenge, the district court resolved

that the 2019 ALJ Decision was constitutionally sound because (1) ALJ Bright had —

before the 2019 ALJ Decision — been properly appointed within the mandate of the

Appointments Clause; (2) the Appeals Council’s vacatur of the constitutionally infirm 2018

ALJ Decision on a merits-related issue eliminated any requirement to apply Lucia’s

remedy of a remand to a different ALJ; and (3) in any event, the Supreme Court had

specified in Lucia that it “[did] not hold that a new officer is required for every

Appointments Clause violation.” See Opinion 8 (quoting Lucia, 138 S. Ct. at 2055 n.5).

Following entry of the final judgment, Brooks timely noticed this appeal. We possess

jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291.

II.

On appeal, Brooks presents the same contentions that she pressed in the district

court against the 2019 ALJ Decision. Specifically, she contends that ALJ Bright failed to

“explain the weight she gave to the conflicting testimony” provided by the competing

vocational experts; that ALJ Bright neglected to consider Brooks’s mental limitations in

assessing her residual functional capacity; and that, because the 2018 ALJ Decision

represented an unconstitutional rejection of Brooks’s disability benefits claim that was not *9 USCA4 Appeal: 21-2048 Doc: 41 Filed: 02/22/2023 Pg: 9 of 18

cured as required by Lucia, the 2019 ALJ Decision contravened the Appointments Clause.

See Br. of Appellant 10. 6

In reviewing a Social Security disability determination, we afford no deference to a

district court’s decision and will instead uphold the ALJ’s underlying determination so long

as the ALJ applied the correct legal standards and the resulting conclusion is supported by

substantial evidence. See Bird v. Comm’r of Social Sec. Admin., 699 F.3d 337, 440 (4th

Cir. 2012) (citing 42 U.S.C. § 405(g)). In these circumstances, however, we need not

resolve the question of whether the 2019 ALJ Decision was supported by substantial

evidence. As explained herein, that Decision is constitutionally infirm under Lucia.

Without resolving the merits contentions, we are obliged to vacate the judgment and

remand for Brooks’s disability benefits claim to be returned to the Commissioner for a new

and plenary hearing before a different and properly appointed ALJ.

6 We observe that Brooks has cast her Appointments Clause appellate argument largely in terms of issue preservation and forfeiture, defending her ability to receive relief on the constitutional claim notwithstanding her failure to present it during the administrative proceedings. But as explained previously — and as the Commissioner concedes, see Br. of Appellee 20 — the Supreme Court has now ruled that Social Security claimants are not required to exhaust their Appointments Clause challenges before the Agency in order to pursue them in federal court. See Carr v. Saul, 141 S. Ct. 1352, 1356, 1360-61 (2021). In any event, Brooks has correctly explained that the Appointments Clause entitles her to a remand and a new and plenary hearing on her disability benefits claim. See Br. of Appellant 39, 42.

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III.

A.

The Appointments Clause of Article II of the Constitution specifies that the

President “shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall

appoint . . . Officers of the United States.” See U.S. Const. art. II, § 2, cl. 2. Relevant here,

the Clause goes on to provide that “the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of

such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or

in the Heads of Departments.” Id. Because the Appointments Clause acts to “preserve[]

. . . the Constitution’s structural integrity by preventing the diffusion of the appointment

power,” see Ryder v. United States, 515 U.S. 177, 182 (1995), “remedies with bite” should

be applied to appointments that run afoul of the Clause’s restrictions, see Cody v. Kijakazi,

48 F.4th 956, 960 (9th Cir. 2022).

In Lucia v. SEC, the Supreme Court held in June 2018 that the SEC’s ALJs are

“inferior Officers” under the Constitution, and that those ALJ positions are subject to the

requirements of the Appointments Clause. See 138 S. Ct. 2044, 2055 (2018). That is so,

the Court ruled, because the SEC’s ALJs wield “extensive powers . . . comparable to that

of a federal district judge conducting a bench trial,” occupy “continuing office[s]

established by law,” and “exercis[e] significant authority pursuant to the laws of the United

States.” Id. at 2049, 2051, 2053 (citing Freytag v. Comm’r, 501 U.S. 868 (1991)).

Accordingly, the Lucia Court ruled that the SEC’s ALJs were required to be appointed by

“the President alone,” a “Court of Law,” or a “Head of Department,” and that a department

head can include “the Commission itself.” Id. at 2050. Although Lucia dealt specifically *11 USCA4 Appeal: 21-2048 Doc: 41 Filed: 02/22/2023 Pg: 11 of 18

with SEC ALJs, the Court’s ruling on the Appointments Clause has been treated in

subsequent decisions to apply broadly to ALJs in other executive department federal

agencies. See, e.g., Carr v. Saul, 141 S. Ct. 1352, 1357 (2021) (applying Lucia to judicial

review of Appointments Clause challenges to decisions rendered by Agency ALJs).

The SEC ALJ at issue in Lucia had been selected by the SEC staff. Because that

ALJ was not the sort of “non-officer employee” about whom “the Appointments Clause

cares not a whit,” the Lucia Court ruled that the ALJ’s decision regarding compliance with

the federal securities laws was in contravention of the Clause. See 138 S. Ct. at 2051. In

turn, the Court determined that the “relief [that] follows” from a timely and valid

Appointments Clause challenge is “a new hearing before a properly appointed official.”

Id. at 2055 (quoting Ryder, 515 U.S. at 182-83). Importantly, the Court specified that the

“new hearing” that Lucia referenced could not be conducted by the same ALJ that had

rendered the decision at issue — even if that ALJ “has by now received (or receives

sometime in the future) a constitutional appointment” — because the initial ALJ “cannot

be expected to consider the matter as though he ha[s] not adjudicated it before.” Id.

Explaining its remedy, the Court in Lucia emphasized that “providing a successful

litigant with a hearing before a new judge” not only serves the Appointments Clause’s

structural purposes, but also “create[s] incentives to raise Appointments Clause

challenges,” given that “the old judge would have no reason to think he did anything wrong

on the merits . . . and so could be expected to reach all the same judgments,” if the matter

in dispute were returned to him. See 138 S. Ct. at 2055 n.5. At bottom, the Court made *12 USCA4 Appeal: 21-2048 Doc: 41 Filed: 02/22/2023 Pg: 12 of 18

plain that, “[t]o cure the constitutional error, another ALJ . . . must hold the new hearing to

which [the claimant] is entitled.” Id. at 2055.

B.

1.

a.

In this appeal, there is no dispute that the 2018 ALJ Decision denying Brooks’s

disability benefits claim was not constitutionally sound. That is, ALJ Bright was

improperly appointed to her post as an ALJ by the Agency staff. But Brooks and the

Commissioner have parted ways on the constitutional validity of the 2019 ALJ Decision,

also rendered by ALJ Bright. Brooks insists that, because she has not received the remedy

prescribed by Lucia for the Appointments Clause violation that infected the 2018 ALJ

Decision, the 2019 ALJ Decision was fatally “tainted” by its 2018 predecessor and is also

a nullity. In the circumstances, we are constrained to agree with Brooks.

The Commissioner, for her part, primarily counters by adopting the district court’s

conclusion that, because “[t]he only decision under review by this Court is the ALJ’s April

2019 merits-based decision, which was made after the ALJ’s appointment was ratified by

the Acting Commissioner . . . [Brooks’s] Appointments Clause objection fails.” See

Opinion 8-9. More specifically, the Commissioner argues that, because ALJ Bright’s

“appointment was ratified . . . before she issued the decision at issue in this appeal,” there

is no reversible constitutional error for us to correct. See Br. of Appellee 20. The

Commissioner also asserts that the Appointments Clause infirmity of the 2018 ALJ *13 USCA4 Appeal: 21-2048 Doc: 41 Filed: 02/22/2023 Pg: 13 of 18

Decision is “of no moment,” because it was later vacated by the Appeals Council. Id. at

21.

It is true that, when ALJ Bright filed her second denial of Brooks’s disability

benefits claim in April 2019, she had been properly appointed to her ALJ position by virtue

of the Commissioner’s 2018 ratification. And the 2019 ALJ Decision is the ruling now

being challenged. But the Commissioner overlooks at least three important facts: (1) ALJ

Bright denied Brooks’s disability benefits claim in 2018 in contravention of the

Appointments Clause; (2) the Supreme Court thereafter decided in Lucia that, “[t]o cure

[that] constitutional error, another ALJ . . . must hold [a] new hearing,” see 138 S. Ct. at

2055; and (3) Brooks has never been afforded the remedy specified by the Lucia Court.

Although Brooks was accorded another hearing, the very same ALJ — ALJ Bright —

presided and again denied Brooks’s claim by way of the 2019 ALJ Decision.

In that regard, this appeal bears striking similarities to the Ninth Circuit’s recent

decision in Cody v. Kijakazi, 48 F.4th 956 (9th Cir. 2022). There, an Agency ALJ denied

Cody’s claim for Social Security benefits in September 2017 — well before the

Commissioner’s 2018 ratification and in violation of the Appointments Clause. In

September 2018, following the Lucia decision and the Commissioner’s ratification, Cody

sought review of the ALJ’s ruling in federal court, but did not raise an Appointments Clause

challenge. The district court granted relief to Cody, vacating the ALJ’s ruling on an

evidentiary issue. On remand, the Appeals Council returned Cody’s benefits claim to the

same ALJ — who in 2019 again denied Cody’s claim. Cody then returned to the district

court, raising both merits and Appointments Clause challenges to the ALJ’s 2019 decision. *14 USCA4 Appeal: 21-2048 Doc: 41 Filed: 02/22/2023 Pg: 14 of 18

The district court nevertheless affirmed, denying Cody’s Appointments Clause claim

“because the 2017 decision had been vacated and [the ALJ] was properly appointed when

she issued the 2019 decision.” Id. at 960. In other words, the district court in Cody’s case

applied the same erroneous reasoning as the district court in this case.

The Ninth Circuit vacated the district court’s Cody decision in 2022, however, and

it remanded Cody’s claim to the Agency, directing that “[t]he Commissioner should . . .

assign a different, validly appointed ALJ to rehear and adjudicate Cody’s case de novo.”

See 48 F.4th at 963 (emphasis in original). The court of appeals decision emphasized that

an Appointments Clause violation is “no mere technicality or quaint formality — it

weakens our constitutional design.” Id. at 960. After assessing the rationale and

requirements of the Supreme Court’s Lucia decision, the Ninth Circuit ruled that the

Agency ALJ’s “2017 decision tainted the post-ratification 2019 decision.” Id. at 962.

Although its decision recognized that the Agency ALJ in Cody had been properly appointed

when she denied Cody’s claim in 2019, the court of appeals explained explicitly that,

“because the same ALJ issued both decisions, Cody did not receive what Lucia requires:

an adjudication untainted by an Appointments Clause violation.” Id.

Put simply, the Cody decision is practically on all-fours, and there is no reason for

us to reach a different conclusion and thus create a circuit split. Given that ALJ Bright

“lacked constitutional authority to do [her] job” with respect to Brooks’s disability benefits

claim in 2018, see Lucia, 138 S. Ct. at 2050 — and because Brooks never received the

requisite remedy — the constitutional error committed in 2018 was a continuing violation

that infected ALJ Bright’s 2019 adjudication of the same claim. And the Lucia decision *15 USCA4 Appeal: 21-2048 Doc: 41 Filed: 02/22/2023 Pg: 15 of 18

explains that claimants (like Brooks) are entitled to relief from any “adjudication tainted

with an appointments violation.” See 138 S. Ct. at 2055. The district court, for its part,

concluded that there was no such blight on the 2019 ALJ Decision because “[t]he ALJ was

properly appointed during the entire administrative adjudication that this Court is

reviewing.” See Opinion 9. But the “entire administrative adjudication” necessarily

included the flawed 2018 ALJ Decision and, pursuant to Lucia, ALJ Bright could not

thereafter properly rule on Brooks’s disability benefits claim.

b.

Seeking to bolster the argument that ALJ Bright could properly review and again

resolve Brooks’s case in 2019, the Commissioner also explains that, because Brooks did

not raise an Appointments Clause challenge in her administrative appeal, the Appeals

Council was under no obligation to send the case to a new ALJ when it vacated the 2018

ALJ Decision. We take no issue with that proposition. And, to be clear, we do not rule

that the Appeals Council had a sua sponte obligation to raise the Appointments Clause

issue on Brooks’s behalf.

What we reject, however, is the Commissioner’s representation that “there is no

reason that Brooks is entitled to the special remedy of a hearing before a new ALJ, which

is reserved as an incentive for those who flag uncorrected defects in the agency

proceeding.” See Br. of Appellee 23. As we see it, Brooks did properly flag the

Appointments Clause defect — raising the issue in the district court — and the Supreme

Court settled that very question in her favor in the Carr decision. See 141 S. Ct. at 1356;

see also supra note 6. Pursuant to Carr, Brooks “ma[de] a timely challenge to the *16 USCA4 Appeal: 21-2048 Doc: 41 Filed: 02/22/2023 Pg: 16 of 18

constitutional validity of the appointment of [the] officer who adjudicate[d] [her] case,”

and she is therefore “entitled to [the] relief” established by Lucia. See 138 S. Ct. at 2055.

2.

The Commissioner separately maintains — again adhering to the reasoning of the

district court — that Lucia’s remedy of a new hearing before a different ALJ is unnecessary

and irrelevant in these circumstances, in that the Appeals Council actually vacated the 2018

ALJ Decision on a merits-based issue. As the Opinion explained, the Supreme Court

fashioned the Lucia remedy in part “to create incentives to raise Appointments Clause

challenges,” recognizing that if a constitutionally infirm ALJ decision were returned to the

same adjudicator, “the old judge would have no reason to think he did anything wrong on

the merits, and so could be expected to reach all the same judgments.” See 138 S. Ct. at

2055 n.5. That being so, the Commissioner maintains that the Appeals Council rendered

Lucia’s remedy inapplicable by affirmatively advising ALJ Bright “that something was

substantively wrong in her prior decision” (regarding the first vocational expert’s testimony

as to Brooks’s transferable job skills). See Br. of Appellee 21.

This alternative contention falls flat for at least two sound reasons. First, the

Appeals Council’s merits-based vacatur simply is not relevant to Brooks’s Appointments

Clause challenge. To be sure, the Lucia decision identified the aforementioned

“incentivization” rationale as the general basis for its chosen remedy, but it did not carve

out any exception to the remedy’s necessity for the situation where a constitutionally infirm

ALJ decision has been vacated on a merits-related issue. To the contrary, the Court ruled

— in no uncertain terms — that “[t]o cure the constitutional error, another ALJ . . . must *17 USCA4 Appeal: 21-2048 Doc: 41 Filed: 02/22/2023 Pg: 17 of 18

hold the new hearing to which [the claimant] is entitled.” See 138 S. Ct. at 2055. Put

differently, where an improperly appointed ALJ decides a claim in contravention of the

Appointments Clause, the structural constitutional error will remain in place unless and

until a different, properly appointed ALJ assesses and resolves the claim. And, as Brooks

persuasively argues, it would border on absurd to ignore a patent constitutional violation

(and the remedy developed therefor) because of evidentiary defects in the constitutionally

flawed proceedings. As the Ninth Circuit aptly put it, an Appointments Clause violation

is “no mere technicality or quaint formality” that can so easily be overlooked, in that such

a violation “weakens our constitutional design.” See Cody, 48 F.4th at 960.

The Commissioner’s position also fails because the Appeals Council’s merits-

related vacatur of the 2018 ALJ Decision does not fully eliminate the problem identified

by the Lucia Court that, on remand, the same ALJ would be hard pressed to “consider the

matter as though [she] had not adjudicated it before.” See 138 S. Ct. at 2055. Because

ALJ Bright had already heard and decided the merits of Brooks’s disability benefits claim,

a strong possibility remained that she would resolve the issue identified by the Appeals

Council and, in the end, simply make the same ruling. And that is precisely what happened

here. ALJ Bright received new vocational evidence in the 2019 hearing, opted not to rest

her decision on the issue of Brooks’s transferable job skills (instead resolving that Brooks

could perform her past relevant work), and again denied Brooks’s disability benefits claim. *18 USCA4 Appeal: 21-2048 Doc: 41 Filed: 02/22/2023 Pg: 18 of 18

The nature of the Appeals Council’s vacatur in this case, in other words, does little to

undermine the “incentivizing” purpose of Lucia’s remedy. 7

***

At bottom, the Lucia decision controls our resolution of this appeal. The Supreme

Court made clear that if an ALJ makes a ruling absent a proper constitutional appointment,

and if the claimant interposes a timely Appointments Clause challenge, the appropriate

remedy is for the claim to be reheard before a new decisionmaker. Brooks did not receive

that remedy. The Appointments Clause violation as to Brooks was thus not cured, and the

2019 ALJ Decision was likewise rendered in contravention of that Clause. Faithful to the

Supreme Court’s Lucia’s mandate, we are obliged to vacate and remand.

IV.

Pursuant to the foregoing, we vacate the judgment of the district court and remand

for the return of Brooks’s disability benefits claim to the Commissioner for a new and

plenary hearing before a different and properly appointed ALJ.

VACATED AND REMANDED

7 Although the Commissioner does not argue the point, the district court explained that Lucia’s new hearing and new ALJ assignment was not necessary in Brooks’s case because the Supreme Court had not framed the remedy as “a bright-line rule.” See Opinion 8. The court deemed it significant that “[t]he Lucia Court explicitly acknowledged that it ‘do[es] not hold that a new officer is required for every Appointments Clause violation.’” Id. But the Supreme Court in Lucia explained that it could “give [the] remedy here because other ALJs (and the [SEC]) are available to hear this case on remand” and that the remedy would be unavailable only if “there is no substitute decisionmaker.” See 138 S. Ct. at 2055 n.5. Nothing in this record indicates that “no substitute decisionmaker” is available to rehear Brooks’s disability benefits claim. Accordingly, we recognize that this point has properly been abandoned by the Commissioner.