From WTVQ:
Hundreds of Social Security disability recipients in Appalachia who were victimized by now-disbarred attorney Eric C. Conn’s fraud scheme notched another major legal victory.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled Thursday the Social Security Administration violated due process rights of Conn’s former clients by refusing to allow them to rebut allegations that their medical evidence was tainted by fraud. ...
The agency ended up terminating benefits for nearly half those individuals, including Gary Kirk and Larry Kermit Taylor, the plaintiffs in Thursday’s decision.
Kirk and Taylor successfully argued the SSA violated the Administrative Procedure Act and the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution when it revoked their disability.
Besides the Fourth Circuit, the Sixth Circuit and the Seventh Circuit have considered substantially similar cases and each concluded that the SSA’s redetermination procedures were unlawful. ...
4 comments:
SSA did just score a big win in the Sixth Circuit though on fees related to these cases, as it upheld a group of District Court cases that all denied EAJA fees to the attorneys who assisted in litigating these Conn cases!
Right decision. Should have kept them on benefits. If proven otherwise with a CDR, then hit them with an overpayment. This whole Conn mess was handled horribly on all sides.
Hit them w an OP? LOL! That really works, the agency "collects" so much of it... Btw, sure, there's no doubt that some would be found disabled w/o fraudulent CE reports and fraudulent VE' statements and whatever else was done illegally/unlawfully cuz they'd satisfy the statutory and regulatory requirements… but is also the fact that most would not. No one is clean and honest in this whole criminal scheme - agency, lawyer, experts, and, yes, claimants.
Claimants don't know the legal criteria for disability. Conn was obtaining fraudulent doctors' reports and opinions, which the claimants had no way to know. The Agency knew the numbers done by this ALJ and is not blameless, but the claimants shouldn't be held responsible for their crooked representative.
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