## Facts

- Juanita Newman, an SSI beneficiary, brought a class action against the Commissioner of Social Security challenging an SSA regulation governing SSI benefit calculation under retrospective monthly accounting (RMA).
- Under RMA, SSI benefits for a given month are based on income from one or two months earlier, delaying benefit increases for decreased income by up to two months.
- Congress authorized an exception permitting current-month adjustments when based on “reliable” and “currently available” information, directing the Commissioner to identify such information by regulation.
- The SSA promulgated a regulation effectively stating it would allow no discretionary exception to RMA (beyond any exception expressly compelled by statute).
- Newman alleged the SSA had highly reliable advance information that her Title II benefits would terminate but did not increase her SSI until two months after the termination, causing a period below the program’s intended subsistence-level support.
- The district court found jurisdiction but upheld the regulation; Newman appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether the Commissioner’s categorical refusal, by regulation, to permit any discretionary exception to RMA is judicially reviewable under the APA.
2. Whether that categorical refusal is inconsistent with the SSI statute’s directive concerning “reliable” and “currently available” information and therefore invalid as arbitrary and capricious.

## Decision

- The Ninth Circuit held the regulation and the refusal to create any discretionary exception to RMA were judicially reviewable because the statute supplied standards for evaluating agency action.
- The court held the categorical refusal to implement any discretionary exception was inconsistent with the statutory directive and arbitrary and capricious.
- The court reversed the district court and remanded for further proceedings consistent with its opinion, including development of a regulation that meaningfully addresses the statutory exception.

## Legal Principles

- Agency action is reviewable when Congress provides a meaningful legal standard (here, statutory criteria tied to “reliable” and “currently available” information), even if the agency retains discretion in implementation.
- An agency may not nullify a statutorily authorized discretionary mechanism through a blanket rule refusing to consider its use; such a refusal can be arbitrary and capricious under the APA.
- In administering SSI, benefit-accounting rules must be applied consistently with Congress’s design of supplementing other income to maintain at least a subsistence-level payment, particularly where the agency possesses reliable advance information about income changes.

## Conclusion

The Ninth Circuit required the SSA to treat Congress’s authorization for current-month SSI adjustments based on reliable, currently available information as a real administrative option, holding that a categorical refusal to allow any discretionary exception to RMA is reviewable and unlawful.


Newman v. Apfel, 223 F.3d 937 (9th Cir. 2000)