Johnson v. Barnhart

Leonard Johnson (plaintiff) received old-age-insurance benefits (social security) from the Social Security Administration (SSA). When Johnson first applied for social security, he stated that he was working for the United States Postal Service (USPS) and would receive a USPS pension upon retirement. He acknowledged that when he started receiving the USPS pension, federal law would require a reduction in his social-security payments to prevent the windfall that would otherwise result from receiving payments from two government pension programs. In February 1996, Johnson informed the SSA that he planned to retire in March 1996 and would begin receiving payments from his USPS pension. However, Johnson continued to receive the same amount of social security from the SSA for approximately four years. When the SSA discovered the error in December 1999, it sought repayment from Johnson for the overpaid social-security amounts, which totaled $8,618. Johnson paid under protest. He then filed a claim with the SSA, seeking repayment of the amount the SSA had recovered from him. He argued that he was entitled to a waiver of the SSA’s recovery of the overpayment because he informed the SSA of his retirement and it was the SSA’s error that caused the overpayment. The SSA’s appeals council held that Johnson was not entitled to a waiver of recovery because he failed to notify the SSA of the overpayment and was thus partially at fault. Johnson filed suit in federal district court against SSA commissioner Jo Anne Barnhart (defendant) to challenge that decision.