Collin v. Commissioner of Social Security

In 1990, an Ohio state court ordered Jacobs to pay Collin $13,800 in child-support payments. Jacobs subsequently began to receive social security benefits, but, by January 2014, Jacobs’s arrearage totaled $45,356. The state court directed the Commissioner to garnish Jacobs’s social-security payments, 42 U.S.C. 659. In October 2015, the Commissioner mistakenly terminated the garnishment. A year later Collin asked the court to order the Commissioner to resume the garnishment and to pay a lump sum equal to the amount the Commissioner had failed to garnish. The Commissioner voluntarily resumed the garnishment. The Sixth Circuit affirmed dismissal, holding that Collin’s demand was for “money damages,” so the United States was immune from suit. Section 659(a) provides that moneys payable by[] the United States . . . to any individual . . . shall be subject, in like manner and to the same extent as if the United States . . . were a private person, to withholding . . . to enforce the legal obligation ... to provide child support"; but 5 C.F.R. 581.305(e)(2) states “Neither the United States ... nor any governmental entity shall be liable ... to pay money damages for failure to comply with legal process.” The relief Collin seeks is not enforcement of “the statutory mandate itself” but instead damages for the failure to withhold, for which the government has not waived its immunity. View "Collin v. Commissioner of Social Security" on Justia Law