We're talking about people with sufficiently significant impairments that they are incapable of working. They are non-technical and likely do not have an emergency fund or usable credit. They do not have the bandwidth to file lawsuits.

I agree that this feels like a market misalignment that could be corrected and make someone a boatload of money in the process, but between the above issue and the general slowness of the legal market I'm not sure that that's actually the case.

>I agree that this feels like a market misalignment that could be corrected and make someone a boatload of money in the process

This is already done. There are law firms that specialize in disability cases on contingency - they take their payment as a cut of what your back pay would be if they win and nothing if they lose.

And as a result, their bar for taking winnable cases is even higher. Its not that easy for most people.

Issue is that most state and federal level organizations enjoy Sovereign Immunity. Makes them immune to most forms of lawsuits. They can do what they want without issue.

I'm not certain about this (maybe someone who knows for sure can chime in).

I'm pretty sure you can sue anyone for anything, and then the judge throws it out if the case doesn't have merit. But if enough people do it, somebody somewhere has to make a decision about whether to keep hearing cases or change the law to make filing illegal somehow. That's the point where people get seriously pissed off and protests form and somebody stands to lose an election.

I saw a documentary along similar lines where a town didn't want a pig farm (due to smell etc). The county wanted to force them to do it, so they said no and sued the county. Then the state said no so they sued the state. I think it went all the way to the supreme court. They worked their way up the ladder until finally the law was changed so that towns had their own say in whether they wanted to smell like a pig farm (which no town does).

This technique works well for environmental laws and when corporations poison neighborhoods with pollution, things of that nature.

Edit: I went to find the case but there are so many that I think the results stand on their own:

https://www.google.com/search?q=pig+farm+lawsuit

>I'm pretty sure you can sue anyone for anything, and then the judge throws it out if the case doesn't have merit.

You can file almost anything you want, but it costs money to do so, and in some cases you can be forced to pay the defendant's legal fees. Lawyers can also face disciplinary action for filing suit that they know will be dismissed.

Assuming you learn how to file on your own, and you continue filing meritless lawsuits, you can be declared a vexatious litigant, and the court will bar you from taking further legal action without prior approval by a judge.

Disability claims can be appealed to an administrative law judge without filing a lawsuit[1]. It helps to have a lawyer for this, but having a lawyer or filing an appeal does not guarantee approval.

[1] https://www.ssa.gov/benefits/disability/appeal.html

The doctor denying the application incurs no cost when the case is challenged in court. The cost is incurred by the individual suing (paying legal fees) and the state (defending the suit).