Cite as: 529 U. S. 1 (2000)
Opinion of the Court
III
In answering the question, we temporarily put the case on which the Court of Appeals relied, Michigan Academy, supra, to the side. Were we not to take account of that case, § 405(h) as interpreted by the Court's earlier cases of Weinberger v. Salfi, supra, and Heckler v. Ringer, supra, would clearly bar this § 1331 lawsuit.
In Salfi, a mother and a daughter, filing on behalf of themselves and a class of individuals, brought a § 1331 action challenging the constitutionality of a statutory provision that, if valid, would deny them Social Security benefits. See 42 U. S. C. §§ 416(c)(5), (e)(2) (imposing a duration-of-relationship Social Security eligibility requirement for surviving wives and stepchildren of deceased wage earners). The mother and daughter had appeared before the agency but had not completed its processes. The class presumably included some who had, and some who had not, appeared before the agency; the complaint did not say. This Court held that § 405(h) barred § 1331 jurisdiction for all members of the class because "it is the Social Security Act which provides both the standing and the substantive basis for the presentation of th[e] constitutional contentions." Salfi, supra, at 760-761. The Court added that the bar applies "irrespective of whether resort to judicial processes is necessitated by discretionary decisions of the Secretary or by his nondiscretionary application of allegedly unconstitutional statutory restrictions." 422 U. S., at 762. It also pointed out that the bar did not "preclude constitutional challenges," but simply "require[d] that they be brought" under the same "jurisdictional grants" and "in conformity with the same standards" applicable "to nonconstitutional claims arising under the Act." Ibid.
We concede that the Court also pointed to certain special features of the case not present here. The plaintiff class had asked for relief that included a direction to the Secretary to pay Social Security benefits to those entitled to them but for
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