ABSTRACT
The Benefi ts Review Board is located in the Department of Labor’s Frances Perkins Building, a massive complex about a stone’s throw from the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. To reach the Board’s offi ces, you are led through a maze of faded corridors, far removed from anyone’s conception of the marble temples that house federal judges. You get the impression that the employees are chronically overworked, staggering under the weight of the thousands of workers’ compensation cases that they process each year. Board members insist that they give full consideration to each, seeing their professional responsibilities as little different from those of the federal judges who review them. “I don’t mean to infl ate my position,” said one Board member whom I interviewed. “But my responses would be the same as if you went to any district court judge or you went to a circuit court. This is what we do.”
