What are the findings of the Secretary of State's appeal against the District Court's order that a class of beneficiaries must exhaust all their administrative remedies before seeking judicial review of the order?

The Secretary also contends that the district court erred by including in the subclass of claimants those who failed to exhaust their administrative remedies as required by Section 405(g). The exhaustion requirement derives from the "final decision" rule. Id. It consists of two elements: one which can be waived and the other which cannot. The non-waivable jurisdictional component requires that an applicant present a claim for benefits, while the waivable element mandates full exhaustion of available administrative remedies prior to seeking judicial review. City of New York, 476 U.S. at 482-85, 106 S.Ct. at 2031-32; Mathews, 424 U.S. at 328-30, 96 S.Ct. at 899-900. No jurisdictional problem is raised here by the presentment requirement since all class members initially applied for benefits. State of New York, 105 F.R.D. at 122. More complex is the propriety of waiver.

A court may waive the need to exhaust administrative remedies under appropriate circumstances. Heckler v. Ringer,

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Waiver here was appropriate. The issue raised by the subclass was "entirely collateral to [its] substantive claim of entitlement." Mathews, 424 U.S. at 330, 96 S.Ct. at 900. The basis for the claim was one of procedure since the class members neither sought nor were awarded benefits in the district court, but rather, challenged the Secretary's failure to follow the applicable statutory mandate. City of New York, 476 U.S. at 483, 485, 106 S.Ct. at 2031, 2032. Additionally, exhaustion of administrative remedies would have been a pointless exercise. City of New York v. Heckler, 742 F.2d at 737. Although exhaustion may have resulted in some individual members receiving benefits, the procedural right that the claimants sought to obtain, personalized determinations, could not have been vindicated by individual eligibility decisions. Finally, a colorable claim of irreparable harm was presented. Denial of benefits potentially subjected claimants to deteriorating health, and possibly even to death. We have been instructed that courts "should be especially sensitive to this kind of harm where the Government seeks to require claimants to exhaust administrative remedies merely to enable them to receive the procedure they should have been afforded in the first place," City of New York, 476 U.S. at 484, 106 S.Ct. at 2032. Because all three elements were present, waiver was within the court's discretion.

C. The Cross Appeal

In their cross appeal, the appellees contend that the district court's order improperly foreclosed relief to several categories of claimants and must be modified. A district court's remedial orders are reviewed under the deferential abuse of discretion standard. Bennett v. White, 865 F.2d 1395, 1402 (3d Cir.), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 109 S.Ct. 3247, 106 L.Ed.2d 593 (1989). Accordingly, appellate review of the district court's order is narrow. We dispose of these contentions, upholding the lower court's exercise of discretion.