Late notices from the AC and what can I do about it?

John R. Heard · Joined: 16 May 2004 Posts: 82

I have been practicing SS disability law for over 30 years, and I have seen procedural swings of the pendulum at the Appeals Council many times. I am talking about those boring issues that are only important to practitioners, like do I get 20 days or 45 days to submit my letter/brief to the AC. I have even participated in discussions on this and related topics with the then head of the AC and some of his top staff in a series of meetings held every 90 days back when I served as President of NOSSCR . But last week I saw something I have never seen before, and I am pretty frustrated about it.

On Thursday we received six standard letters from the AC giving us 25 days to submit a letter/brief in cases. No problem, except that we received them on December 18, and the letters were dated December 4. The wording of the letter gives us 25 days FROM THE DATE OF THE LETTER to send in our additional material. Do we have an extra five days? Maybe, but would you want me to risk it if it was your mother's case? The letter does not say anything about an extra 5 days. So, we have 6 briefs due between Christmas and New Years. Beautiful.

On Friday, December 19, I decided to review all of the AC letters myself, and save the envelopes. We received an AC denial dated November 26! I also had denials dated Dec. 2, 4 and 5, as well as Dec. 11and 15. It was a big mail day for AC correspondence. On Saturday, the pattern continued with correspondence dated Dec. 10.

What is going on??!! Who the hell do I talk to about this? As lawyers (or non lawyer reps) we ought to be able to contact the AC and work this sort of thing out easily. I ought to be able to talk to someone who can look into it, and get back to me. I may be able to do that, but every practitioner should be able to. I do not understand why the AC is so resistant to reasonable contact. If we have a problem with the HO, we can call and talk to a SCT or the HOD, if need be. We can work things out. Why won't the AC allow this sort of thing?

And does anyone know why they have suddenly started issuing notices that arrive much later than 5 days after the date on the letter?

dtwarren · Joined: 21 Nov 2008 Posts: 2 Location: New York

I do not know if this is related or not, but on 12/18 I received a Notice of Decision (fully favorable) dated 12/6 on one of my claimant's claims.

anon · Joined: 22 Feb 2008 Posts: 32

My guess would be to send a see attached now and get a date stamp and later send in the brief.Anybody have any ideas?