Class Action Challenges Fleeing Felon Rules

February 1, 2007

Author: Catherine M. Callery (Kate)| Louise M. Tarantino

On December 28, 2006, the Urban Justice Center, along with the National Senior Citizens Law Center and the law firm Proskauer Rose LLP, filed Clark v. Barnhart, a nation-wide class action lawsuit against the Social Security Administration (SSA) and Commissioner Jo Anne B. Barnhart in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. The Plaintiffs challenge the SSA’s practice of suspending benefits of any recipient who has an outstanding warrant alleging a violation of probation or parole without a finding that the person is actually violating probation or parole.

As advocates will recall, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit struck down the SSA’s practice of assuming that anyone with an outstanding warrant is fleeing prosecution and held that the SSA must first determine whether the person intended to flee prosecution before suspending benefits. See Fowlkes v. Adamec, 432 F.3d 90 (2d Cir. 2005). Clark challenges the SSA’s implementation of the other subsection of the “fugitive felon” statute, which relates to probation and parole violators.

The named plaintiffs in Clark, which was filed as a nation-wide class action, come from various parts of New York State, Oregon, and Florida. All had been receiving either SSI or SSDI benefits due to their various disabilities. Their benefits were abruptly terminated by SSA based merely on allegations that they had violated conditions of their respective probations. There were no findings in any of the cases that the plaintiffs had actually violated probation. Each plaintiff presents a very compelling story of the severity of his or her impairments and the harm suffered by losing benefits. Several of them have contemplated suicide as a result.

The Complaint alleges that SSA’s policy of suspending or denying SSDI or SSI benefits solely on the basis of an outstanding warrant alleging a violation of the conditions of probation or parole without regard to whether or not there has been a finding that such individual has in fact committed such a violation is unlawful.

The complaint is posted on the Urban Justice Center’s website (www.urbanjustice.org) in the Mental Health Project’s litigation section.  Plaintiffs’ counsel are anxious to hear of other
possible plaintiffs for this lawsuit. If you have a client who lost his/her benefits because of an outstanding warrant for allegedly violating probation or parole, please contact Jennifer Parish, one of the counsel for the plaintiffs, at (646) 602- 5644.