## Facts

- Lisl I. Kast and Paul Kast were married and both later received Social Security retirement benefits.
- Lisl was born in 1930 and worked from about 1951 through 2008, earning roughly $1.1 million in covered wages; her work history included several years away from paid employment.
- Paul was born in 1928 and worked consistently from about 1952 through 2008, earning roughly $1.6 million in covered wages.
- After reaching full retirement age, both spouses applied for and began receiving monthly Social Security retirement payments based on their own earnings records.
- As of 2006, Paul received about $2,213 per month and Lisl received about $1,792 per month.
- In 2007, Lisl wrote to the Social Security Administration (SSA) contesting why her monthly payment was lower than Paul’s, stating that their work histories were nearly the same.
- The SSA responded that Lisl was already receiving the highest benefit available to her under the Social Security Act and regulations.
- Lisl requested a hearing before an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ). The ALJ upheld the SSA’s calculation and explained the benefit difference as resulting from (1) gaps in Lisl’s earnings history, (2) Paul’s higher lifetime earnings, and (3) the fact that the spouses became eligible for benefits in different years.
- After the agency’s administrative process concluded, Lisl sought judicial review in federal district court under 42 U.S.C. § 405(g), challenging the Commissioner’s final decision.

## Issues

1. Whether the Commissioner’s calculation of Kast’s Title II retirement benefit applied the correct legal standards and was supported by substantial evidence under 42 U.S.C. § 405(g).
2. Whether Kast was entitled to relief because her monthly retirement benefit was lower than her husband’s despite her claim of a nearly identical work history.

## Decision

- The court granted the Commissioner’s motion for judgment on the pleadings and dismissed the complaint.
- The court affirmed the Commissioner’s final decision upholding the SSA’s computation of Kast’s retirement benefit.
- The court held that the agency’s explanation for the difference between the spouses’ monthly benefits—work-history gaps, higher lifetime earnings for Paul, and different eligibility years—supported the challenged calculation.
- The court found no basis to overturn the agency’s result where the retirement-benefit formula was applied to Kast’s earnings record as required by statute and regulation and the ALJ’s findings were supported by substantial evidence.

## Legal Principles

- Under 42 U.S.C. § 405(g), a federal court reviews the Commissioner’s final decision to determine whether the correct legal rules were used and whether the decision is supported by substantial evidence.
- Substantial evidence is more than a mere scintilla; it is such relevant evidence as a reasonable mind might accept as adequate to support a conclusion. A reviewing court does not reweigh the record or substitute its judgment for the agency’s.
- Social Security retirement benefits are calculated under a statutory formula that uses a worker’s covered earnings record (including years of low or no earnings), wage indexing, and a primary insurance amount (PIA) computation that depends in part on the year the worker becomes entitled to benefits.
- Different earnings patterns, different total covered earnings, and different years of entitlement can lawfully produce different monthly benefit amounts for spouses, even when both spouses worked for many years.
- A claimant cannot obtain judicial relief based solely on a fairness objection or a comparison to a spouse’s benefit amount absent a showing that the agency misapplied the governing statute or regulations to the claimant’s own earnings record.

## Conclusion

The district court upheld the SSA’s retirement-benefit calculation for Lisl Kast and dismissed her challenge, concluding that the Commissioner applied the required statutory formula and that substantial evidence supported the ALJ’s explanation that work-history gaps, higher lifetime earnings for her husband, and different eligibility years accounted for the spouses’ differing monthly benefits.


Kast v. Astrue, 2012 WL 394831 (2012)