Anh Tuyet Thai v. Los Angeles County, California, et al.

This Court has long recognized that “to facilitate the orderly and sympathetic administration of the disability program[s] * * *, the Secretary and Congress have established an unusually protective * * * process for the review and adjudication of disputed [disability] claims.” Heckler v. Day, 467 U.S. 104 (1984); Bowen v. City of New York, 476 U.S. 467 (1986). However, for the past fifteen years, the County of Los Angeles (“County”) has sent armed police officers to search Social Security disability applicants by entering their homes through deception or coercion and thereafter issuing criminal search reports accusing the applicants of fraud or malingering, resulting in a summary denial of benefits and thus violating disability applicants’ Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments rights and their rights under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Rehabilitation Act (RA). In order to vindicate the disability applicants’ rights and stop the ongoing violations, petitioner asks this Court to resolve the following questions presented:

1. Did police officers who are employed by the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office in a cooperative State and Federal anti-fraud program act under color of federal law, and are they immune from suits for equitable relief under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, when they forcibly searched Anh Thai and other disability applicants in connection with their applications for Social Security disability benefits?

2. Are searches like those performed by the County joint federal-state criminal investigators against disability applicants, in which criminal fraud investigators coerce