More On Arrest Of Joseph Murphy

From KCRG-TV in Cedar Rapids:

More victims are emerging after Dubuque police sent out a warning about a Social Security scam.

Joseph Murphy is now in the Dubuque County Jail. Police say he pretended to be a Social Security benefits advocate, convincing several people to give him cash, which he kept for himself. ...

Police say Murphy set up a fake business called American Disability Entitlements.

He’d promise to help people who needed Social Security benefits start their paperwork. ...

The victims tell police Murphy demanded cash or credit card numbers up front. ...

Baxter says Murphy could also have victims in Wisconsin and Illinois. If you think you may be a victim, contact Dubuque police.

Update: And there is this from the Janesville, WI Gazette:

An Edgerton native with a local history of fraud and harassment now is accused of bilking more than $30,000 from two Sheboygan residents, one of whom is mentally disabled. ...

Murphy has been in and out of prison on theft and probation violation cases and often has sought out media attention.

In 1997, for example, he made national news after he complained to the media that the Social Security Administration branch in Janesville did not protect him from himself when it gave him almost $50,000 in back benefits. Murphy claimed he had a gambling problem and that he gambled away the money. ...

In the recent Sheboygan County case, a 47-year-old Sheboygan man told police he contacted Murphy so the man could get disability payments. Murphy listed himself in the yellow pages under American Disability Entitlements.

According to the complaint, Murphy over several weeks pressured the man to give him about $30,000. ...

In January 2009, Murphy aired a commercial in the Janesville area advertising the same company and seeking clients. ...

“Twenty-five years ago I was disabled and unable to work,” Murphy said in the commercial. “I was frustrated with the red legal tape, so I researched the Social Security laws and what I was entitled to. And I was just one case.

“Did you know there are up to 75,000 new disability claims in Wisconsin per year? If you are unable to work due to a physical or mental condition and are having trouble collecting Social Security disability benefits, please give me a call. I’m the little guy who will fight for what you are entitled to.”

Did this fellow ever qualify as a non-attorney representative?

Budget Limitations Hinder Debt Collection

From a recent report by Social Security's Office of Inspector General (OIG) (footnotes omitted):

Our review focused on SSA’s [Social Security Administration's] debt collection arrangements in the SSI [Supplemental Security Income] program. Since Fiscal Year (FY) 2002, the percent of outstanding SSI debt in a collection arrangement has decreased. Specifically, between FYs 2002 and 2010, SSI debt in a collection arrangement decreased by more than 5 percent. SSA stated resource constraints in the SSI program have caused the Agency to shift focus from debt collection activities and other program integrity workloads to maintain front-line services.

During FYs 2008 through 2011, we estimated, based on historical SSI collection rates, that SSA could have recovered an additional $200 million of SSI debt. This could have been accomplished if SSA had placed an additional $441 million of outstanding SSI debt into collection arrangements at the FY 2002 level during FYs 2008 through 2010.

Disability Advocate Arrested

From Eastern Iowa News:

William Joseph Murphy, 44, (currently incarcerated in the Dubuque County Jail) is the focus of an ongoing theft investigation involving fraudulent social security disability advocacy. Anyone who may have been deceived by Murphy and/or his company, American Disability Entitlements, LLC, is asked to contact Investigator David Randall at 563-589-4429.

Answer To The Quiz

I received a number of answers to yesterday's "quiz", many of them having to do with the Vocational Expert testimony in the case. Those answers may have merit but I am sure that some would argue with them.

The issue that I was asking about is indisputable. It strongly appears that no one involved either at the Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) level, the Appeals Council level or the District Court level recognized that the allegation of statutory blindness changed everything.

For purposes of statutory blindness, the date last insured for Social Security Disability Insurance Benefits, which is what the Plaintiff in this case was trying to get, requires only the claimant be fully insured. The separate standard of disability insured status is dropped. This makes it much easier for a person who is blind to meet the insured status requirement.

It is conceivable that a person would last meet the fully insured and disability insured standard on the same date but that would be rare. If that had happened it should have been addressed in the ALJ decision. Enough of that decision is quoted that it seems most unlikely that this is the case. It is certainly possible that the Plaintiff in this case has never met the statutory blindness requirements but that is impossible to tell from this opinion since both the ALJ and the District Court stopped looking at the evidence after the date that the claimant last met the special disability insured requirement. Indeed, it appears that there was little or no evidence in the record after the date that the Plaintiff last met the special disability insured requirement because no one thought that was relevant -- but it was!

Instead of being a case where the ALJ needed only to look at the evidence up to the date that the Plaintiff last met the special disability insured status requirement, which was December 31, 2001, this was a case in which the ALJ needed to look at the evidence of all of the Plaintiff's impairments, which went beyond visual problems, up to December 31, 2001 under the regular disability standard but then look solely at the visual problems to determine whether the Plaintiff was statutorily blind until the date that the Plaintiff was last fully insured. This makes this a unusual and complicated case. That complication should have been addressed in the ALJ decision but it was not. It is entirely possible, even probable, that the Plaintiff remains fully insured today. You only need 40 quarters of coverage to be fully insured for life and this Plaintiff probably earned those 40 quarters a long time ago. Since visual problems often get worse with time and since December 31, 2001 was quite some time ago this opinion gives me an uneasy feeling.

So who got it right? Here are the ones I received:

• Anonymous
• JOA
• Anonymous
• Anonymous
• Anonymous
• Ralph Wilborn
• Anonymous

I have some concern that my spam filter may have "eaten" some correct answers. Sorry, if I missed seeing your response, but if it was anonymous I guess you would never know anyway.

So what does the low number of correct answers tell us? What does it tell us that this case went so far with so fundamental an error? Anybody slapping their head? What do you think?

Will History Repeat Itself?

From the Washington Post (emphasis added):

The White House is warning that catastrophe will strike if Congress fails to raise the limit on the national debt: With too little cash to pay creditors, the U.S. government would default. Interest rates would skyrocket. And the economic recovery would collapse. ...

So far, the Treasury has nearly drained a $200 billion cash-management account at the Fed, providing a cushion of money to pay bills without new borrowing. Next, Geithner is likely to take a series of “extraordinary actions,” such as suspending the issuance of special securities that help state and local governments manage their own finances. Once the debt hits the limit, Geithner may declare a “debt issuance suspension period,” permitting him to borrow from the pension fund for federal workers.

[Robert] Rubin [Treasury Secretary in the Clinton Administration] pioneered these strategies in 1995, at the start of the budget battles between President Bill Clinton and Republicans led by House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.). As the fight dragged on through two government shutdowns, Rubin had to juggle the nation’s bills for 135 days. Finally, Clinton threatened to delay Social Security checks, spurring Congress to approve more borrowing to make sure the checks went out on time.

A Quiz

Take a look at the decision in Jackson v. Astrue, 733 F.Supp.2d 506 (D.Del.2010). Does anything strike you as odd about this decision? Worrisome?

Maybe things were handled properly but the decisions of both the Administrative Law Judge decision and the District Court decision were poorly drafted. Maybe a lot of people missed the boat but it does not matter anyway. Maybe an injustice has been done. You just cannot tell.

If you think you know what I am talking about, use the "Send Feedback" button on the right side of this page to send me an e-mail. I am blocking comments on this post for now. I will post something later with the names, or initials if you prefer, of those who figure out what I am talking about. You do not have to be a lawyer to take this quiz. Many non-lawyers with Social Security experience know about this.

One hint: If you know your Social Security stuff, you will probably be able to guess the problem by the time you finish reading the second paragraph of the opinion.

Update: Another hint. I have had a couple of correct answers that were not even one complete sentence. Also, pay attention to the first hint. Some people are going to be slapping their heads when I reveal the right answer.

NADE Newsletter

The National Association of Disability Examiners (NADE), an organization of the personnel who work at state government agencies but who make initial and reconsideration determinations on Social Security disability claims, has issued its Spring, 2011 newsletter. Here is an excerpt from one article:

A Group of NADE leaders (President Andrew Martinez, Past President Susan Smith, President-elect Tom Ward and Legislative Director and Past President Jeff Price) traveled to Washington, DC the week of April 11-15 for a series of meetings with SSA, Congress and Governmental oversight agencies. This group canvassed our Nation’s Capital seeking support for NADE’s Top Issues (see front cover) as well as general support for NADE and SSA. The message delivered by the NADE leadership was very specific and both political parties and both houses of Congress were receptive to NADE’s message. ...

NADE is on record as supporting an enhanced reconsideration appeal step but the NADE leadership discovered an over-riding concern among Members of Congress, the claimant advocate community and others was the question, “Does reconsideration have a future?” After lengthy discussions with SSA, with congressional representatives, and with others who have an interest on this issue, it was agreed NADE should investigate its long-standing position to determine if it was still relevant. The true value and effectiveness of this intermediate appeal step should be the subject of serious study to determine its role in the 21st century.

Don't worry, NADE, reconsideration isn't going anywhere. There are many good reasons to wish it gone but doing away with it would be way too expensive. Do worry, NADE, about the editing of your newsletter. An article continued from page 24 to page 8 -- and page 24 said it was continued to page 9!

SDW Finished -- But Was All The SDW Done?

Social Security has announced an end to the Special Disability Workload (SDW) project. SDW has been a long ongoing effort to identify and correct past mistakes in the processing of Social Security disability claims. A simple example would be a widow who filed only a claim for widow's disability benefits when she could also have filed a claim for disability benefits on her own account and received more money. Most, if not all, of the SDW cases were identified by database searches and matches. (There is a fascinating back story on the "unknown hero and pariah" who brought about SDW.) Many of the SDW cases involved staggering amounts of money. Not rarely, people received over $100,000 in back benefits as a result of SDW reviews. Many of the SDW cases were enormously complicated affairs since they went back years, involved complicated interrelations between different types of Social Security benefits and Social Security's byzantine disability work incentives. To handle the SDW cases, Social Security formed an SDW "cadre" of its most able, experienced people. SDW was conducted well out of view of the public but it was an important effort to get it right, to pay the correct benefits to the right people.

I would be happy to see Social Security finished with the SDW since it ate up a lot of staff time but the announcement suggests that there may be some SDW that remains, work that may never get done. Has Social Security truly finished the SDW except for some minor loose ends or is SDW being abandoned because of budget pressures? The timing suggests the latter.