Occasional incorrect dates of decision on OAO documents

JOA · Joined: 13 May 2004 Posts: 1975

This post is about why and how it happens that documents that come out of the Office of Appellate Operations sometimes show a date for a hearing decision that is some few days before the date that shows on the decision itself.

ALJs and hearing office staff use a database called the Case Processing Management System (CPMS). The AC and its staff in the Office of Appellate Operations (OAO) use the Appeals Review Processing System (ARPS). Some of the data in CPMS passes into ARPS. This includes the date of a hearing decision. The Word-based Document Generation System (DGS) that OAO uses to generate letters, orders, and decisions borrows the date of decision from ARPS.

Problem is, the dates that the date of decision that the hearing office enter into CPMS routinely fails to match the date on the decision itself. The error is always in the same direction: the date in CPMS is earlier than the date on the decision. The gap tends to be not more than 3-5 days. But it's there. And unless someone catches it, this error propagates forward into ARPS, to DGS, and then onto the OAO document that goes out the door.

So that's the story about why and how some OAO documents can show an incorrect date for the date of Administrative Law Judge's hearing decision. Ordinarily, this is nothing more than an annoyance. But it's possible that a particularly inattentive support staffer in OAO can send out a letter asking for good cause for late filing when actually, going by the right date, a request for review is not late at all.

There are two related stories that I haven't figured out yet:

1. Why is it that middle initials are showing up without the period?

2. How come "Post Office Box" shows up so often as "Po box"?

Paul Nolan · Joined: 17 May 2004 Posts: 307 Location: Baltimore, MD

David Traver · Posted: Tue Jun 23, 2009 03:18 pm Post subject:

Thanks for the interesting inside view. I always ask callers and clients to save the envelopes in which they received notices. Staple the envelope to the notice. Invariably, the date of mailing will be several days after the date on the letter. This simple practice has saved several District Court cases from the "statute of limitations" graveyard. (Since it's not really a statute, the 65 day time limit on such appeals is not jurisidictional and it's not actually a "statute of limitations." But that critical distinction diverges from your topic.)

I think I can help regarding the last two points.

The format in which data are first entered and then stored on a computer does not dictate how the data are displayed when retrieved and used. When printing or displaying data, the programmer has a tremendous degree of latitude on how they should look when presented within a field. In the first instance, it is likely that a field formatting filter has been applied to strip out non-alphanumeric characters. Such a filter could easily be tuned to target or ignore specific characters, such as a period.

The second item may be of the same ilk. The field formatting options may have been set to produce the first letter of the sentence in upper case, and everything else in lower case.

To correct this system wide, you may wish to find the lovely person who set the display parameters for those output fields, and ask her to change them.

The Wisconsin numbering system is a nightmare for those who make such adjustments and for those who search databases. Consider this address:

Mukwonago Town Hall
W320 S8315 Beulah Road
Mukwonago, WI 53149

Yes, that is coordinate addresses that puts capital letters before each coordinate. I wonder how they will show up in the document you referenced?

Character stripping and field formatting are much more complex than you might imagine. Why? The data upon which they work are often illogical, with complex user demands. Consider, for example, what happens when a letter is to be mailed to a London (England) address in a manner that would allow a similar letter to be sent to a rural Wisconsin address.