Plaintiffs v Social Security Administration
$500-Million Settlement Reached In Class- Action Over Suspension of Social Security Benefits
Legal advocates for the poor, elderly and disabled secured a $500-million class-action settlement for as many as 200,000 people whose Social Security benefits were suspended on unfounded suspicions that they were fleeing prosecution.
The suspensions, dating back nearly a decade in some instances, were ordered in cases of mistaken identity or outstanding warrants for offenses such as bounced checks or traffic violations.
Virtually none of the Social Security recipients who were cut off after their names were matched with those in a computerized warrant database were felons using their government benefits to evade law enforcement or prosecution. More often, those deprived of their sole source of modest income were people like lead plaintiff Rosa Martinez of Redwood City, Calif., whose name matched that of a woman with a 1980 arrest warrant from Miami for drug offenses -- a city she had never visited and a crime she never committed. The drug suspect described in the arrest warrant was eight inches shorter than Martinez.
Most of the $500 million the Social Security Administration has agreed to pay in back benefits will go to 80,000 recipients whose payments have been suspended or denied since Jan. 1, 2007. Those cut off between 2000 and 2006 who haven't previously appealed the suspensions will be allowed to reestablish their eligibility and collect benefits back to April of this year -- a compromise aimed at paying the more recent victims who were appealing their suspensions and presumably had stronger cases.
The settlement negotiated between the federal government and legal advocacy groups such as the Seniors Law Center earned preliminary approval by U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken in Oakland.
Under the agreement, the government will be able to suspend recipients' benefits only in cases where there is evidence that they were actively seeking to evade arrest or prosecution.
For more information please contact:
David H. Fry
Munger, Tolles & Olson
560 Mission Street
27th Floor
San Francisco CA 94105
Phone: (415) 512-4000
