From Emergency Message EM-24005:
... On January 20, 2024, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York approved a settlement agreement in Campos v. Kijakazi, No. 21-cv-05143. The case involved Title XVI overpayments incurred during the COVID-19 pandemic from March 2020 through April 2023.
C. FO [Field Office] instructions
Effective immediately, when making a fault determination on a waiver request for an overpayment incurred in any month since March 2020, technicians must consider any circumstances related to the COVID-19 pandemic that an overpaid individual alleges prevented the individual from reporting changes. When COVID-19 circumstances are alleged, technicians must also document the individual’s allegations of COVID-19 circumstances that prevented the individual from reporting changes in the file. ...
Examples of circumstances related to the COVID-19 pandemic that may have prevented an individual from complying with Title II or Title XVI reporting requirements include, but are not limited to, the following scenarios:
The overpaid individual:
- attempted to contact us but was unable to visit a FO, mail us information, reach us by phone, or get transportation because of the COVID-19 pandemic;
- was unable to contact us because of government-imposed COVID-19 travel restrictions;
- was unable to contact us because of child-care or family-care changes due to COVID-19 stay-at-home orders or school-at-home requirements;
- was unable to contact us because of the overpaid individual’s COVID-19 illness or related serious illness;
- was unable to contact us because the overpaid individual’s representative payee died or became seriously ill due to COVID-19 or serious illness related to COVID-19; or
- was unable to contact us because the overpaid individual’s immediate family member died or became seriously ill due to COVID-19 or related serious illness.
NOTE: This list is not exhaustive. ...