NOSSCR’s amicus committee filed a brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in L.P.N. v. Bisignano, on appeal from the Eastern District of Virginia. The case is about how SSA applies the family maximum to the children of workers who elect to receive early retirement benefits.

When a worker retires early, SSA pays a reduced retirement benefit (RIB), not the full primary insurance amount (PIA). The question is which figure SSA may count against the family maximum. SSA counts the full, unreduced PIA, an amount the retiree never receives, which reduces the benefit payable to the retirees’ children. The district court held that SSA must use the actual, reduced benefit, following the First Circuit’s decision in Parisis by Cooney v. Chater. SSA appealed.

NOSSCR’s brief supports affirmance. It argues that “entitled,” in the family-maximum provision, means the benefit a beneficiary is eligible to receive–not a theoretical amount available under different circumstances–and the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Advocate Christ Medical Center v. Kennedy confirms that reading. The brief also explains that Congress set children’s benefits at half the worker’s PIA and deliberately placed them outside of the early-retirement reduction. On the class cross-appeal, the brief argues that the annual cost-of-living (COLA) letters SSA sends are appealable initial determinations, so children who received them during the class period have timely claims and belong in the class.

The calculation at issue recurs across NOSSCR members’ practices, and the outcome affects the benefits of children of early retirees nationwide.

The brief is included here.

---