Innocents Abroad
New Member
- Jurisdiction
- New York
Hello to all,
My wife and I have a situation here in upstate New York in which the local unit of the Department of Social Services has been breaking state and federal laws in our case for 4 1/2 years. We just found out about this about a month ago. The booklets of Rights and Responsibilities that are handed out to clients are quite vague in many areas. The directive is to ask workers at the local DSS unit to clarify information as necessary, with the assumption that they will always provide accurate, complete, and truthful information. But what if that is not so?
The DSS unit in question has taken numerous actions against us in 4 1/2 years and we always wondered why it was that they were allowed to do that in an instant, with no warning, no due process, etc. I happened to come across, online, copies of the handbooks that the state issues to the DSS units as guidelines to follow the rules and laws. In reading through them, I discovered that this DSS unit has violated our rights and state and federal laws many times.
Through the course of what we have experienced personally, and what we have heard from others, the workers at this DSS unit are a strange mix of arrogance, maliciousness, and ignorance. One employee, who was let go soon after, made the statement to us, "Don't rock the boat....they can make your life very miserable if they don't like you." We have had employees complain....to us....about their training in Albany and how much they don't like that. One supervisor said to us, "Frankly, I don't care about your health. We need our paperwork, or we get audited!" Clients should not be subjected to frustrations over internal DSS matters. They should not hear about that at all. The workers at this unit seem to have the goal of driving as many clients out of the county as possible, in order to reduce their caseloads and financial burden. And they will use whatever tactics are necessary: threats, coercion, withholding and concealing information, etc.
Federal and state laws are set up to make certain that the rights of clients are maintained....that they always have fair opportunity to present their side in a dispute with DSS and offer their "good cause" for consideration, before any decision is rendered.
We have never had that. In at least 6 instances or more, the DSS has issued a Notice of Decision with no prior Notice of Intent or Notice of Conciliation or Warning Letter, as was required. We have never had the opportunity to present our side to a third party or anyone, prior to Decision. That completely violates our civil rights and state and federal laws. In the course of all of this, we have both also been falsely accused of intentionally misrepresenting an impairment....based on nothing at all. The rules state that there must be very clear medical evidence for that....which the DSS has not had.
There has been very little oversight from the state, to put this DSS unit in check. In 2019, we had 2 New York State Fair Hearings on the same day, the first for my wife and the second for me. The administrative law judge was an hour late, having been tied up with other cases in other counties earlier in the day and had more to go to after ours. He was very rushed and did not assimilate the information presented to him very well. He did note that the DSS failed to issue a Notice of Intent in my wife's case, prior to issuing a sanction against her, but he missed other points. We have a recording of my wife's Fair Hearing, because we requested one. On the record, at one point, the primary representative for the DSS makes this statement: "There is a lot of information here and we have not gone through every single document." That sailed right past the judge, as he was riffling through papers and not paying enough attention to what was being said. The DSS was sanctioning my wife for intentionally misrepresenting an impairment, yet here was a blatant admission that they had not even bothered to examine every medical document in evidence! The judge's subsequent decision was in my wife's favor, due to the lack of Notice of Intent, but he sure missed a lot. The Fair Hearing for me was even more rushed and went worse.
The DSS wanted to discontinue my assistance for failure to pursue SSI. I had been assigned an appointment for a medical exam by IMA. I requested that the appointment date be changed. The SSI consultant not only refused my right to a different date, but denied my whole application based on the fact that I did not go to the appointment on the assigned date. Everyone has the federal right to change an appointment date. The DSS had failed to allow me to present "good cause" to them....that my federal right was withheld from me. The judge, in his rushing through, did not grasp it. His subsequent decision found in favor of the DSS. All he focused on was the fact that I did not keep the assigned appointment, not that my right to change the appointment date was taken away from me. His decision showed confusion, in that he thought that it was IMA that refused the change, when it was actually the SSI consultant who was at fault....yet he did not note that the refusal violated my rights. He also failed to note that the DSS had not issued a Notice of Intent. That, in and of itself, should have negated their action.
The judge seemed to be very preoccupied with my wife's case. I had represented her, because she had not been able to attend due to health problems. When both Fair Hearings were over, and everyone was getting ready to leave, some very interesting things happened.
First, the judge came over to me and in what seemed like a casual way, asked me what I thought my and my wife's plans would be now. I said that we would be considering a possible lawsuit against the doctor involved in the situation. (We subsequently determined that the issue was a fault of DSS, not the doctor.)
At that point, the judge said, "You're not gonna sue us, are ya?" I said no. Then he said, "Well, that's good to know!"
I gathered up my papers and was getting into my hat and jacket and realized that the judge had taken the DSS representative aside for a little talk. He obviously didn't realize that his voice was carrying. This is what I overheard:
"Do you have any idea how generous these folks are being, in not suing us? If they did, they would have us! Don't ever do this again. You could get us all in a lot of very serious trouble!"
Then I walked out the door. I had a 3-mile walk ahead of me to get back home, with the last leg of it being up a very steep hill. I was very tired by the end and promptly forgot about what the judge had said.
When I started deeply investigating all of this, what he said came back to the surface in memory. Throughout my wife's Fair Hearing, the judge had been asking the DSS representatives why they thought they could raise not getting the information they wanted fast enough, to the level of intentionally misrepresenting an impairment. There was no evidence of anything like that whatsoever.
That was in 2019. In 2021, they did the very same thing to me. The idea was that the DSS had no medical information on file for me subsequent to August of 2019. The fact is, I completed 6 doctors' appointments subsequent to that time. I called those doctors' offices and was told that at no point in time had anyone from the DSS contacted them for any information, even though I sign HIPAA release forms for the DSS every year so that they can access my medical records at any time they choose. They accused me of intentionally misrepresenting an impairment, without attempting to access any information whatsoever. I had x-rays and MRI reports on file at DSS. They did not request new ones. They did not request that I be examined by IMA. They did not issue a Notice of Intent. At the end of the day on a Friday, I received a Warning Letter in the mail. It stated that I had 10 days to respond before they made a decision. Nevertheless, 24 hours later I received a Notice of Decision of a sanction. The two were dated for consecutive days. Complete violation of rights and laws.
I requested a Fair Hearing. It dragged on without being scheduled. Four months later, after repeated letters to the state, someone somewhere evidently figured out that the situation was untenable and the county withdrew the sanction. But the Fair Hearing, to attempt to resolve other matters, still has not been scheduled.
At this point, no state Fair Hearing could ever properly address everything that has been done to us.
Rights violated, laws broken, false accusations and ruined reputations, monumental stress on a daily basis for years that has further wrecked our already debilitated health conditions. We have been treated like dirt and put through pure hell by this DSS unit.
We want to sue for damages. This is not some little dispute over theft from Walmart. This is systematic abuse. We have very good reason to believe that we are not the only victims in all of this. The attitudes and practices of this DSS unit make it highly likely that they have not been abiding by the rules and laws in many client cases for a lot of years. It seems like they thought no one would find out about it.
We keep very thorough records. Once I found copies of the handbooks and read through them, I was able to piece together every single instance of disregard for our rights and for the laws. I have it all 100% documented and put together. We have the DSS "dead-to-rights". They have no legitimate excuses and zero defense for what they have done.
Since I uncovered all of this, and called out both the DSS and Albany over it and let them know that we know at last what has been going on, they have all been stonewalling and attempting to evade. They have even attempted to cite incorrect information to try to deflect us off the trail. Now that we are in possession of copies of their own handbooks, that is impossible.
Now, the question arises: What attorneys handle cases like this? So far, civil attorneys whom we have contacted don't take this type of case. LawNY says that their particular funding does not cover cases where clients are seeking damages.
Being that federal laws have been broken, we can bring this to federal court and select an attorney outside of our state of residence, because it is a 'federal question', correct?
It seems like this would be quite a lucrative case for the right attorney. We have all of the evidence in our favor, and the DSS has blatantly engaged in wrongdoing that has no defense. We will not be seeking chicken feed. And there are all those other potential clients who may very well have been subjected to the same kinds of unlawful abuse.
This DSS unit needs to be seriously investigated. Client records needs to be gone through with a fine-tooth-comb by a federal agency. Something that would make the state audits that they complain about pale in comparison.
Thanks a lot for reading all of this and also for any advice and suggestions.
My wife and I have a situation here in upstate New York in which the local unit of the Department of Social Services has been breaking state and federal laws in our case for 4 1/2 years. We just found out about this about a month ago. The booklets of Rights and Responsibilities that are handed out to clients are quite vague in many areas. The directive is to ask workers at the local DSS unit to clarify information as necessary, with the assumption that they will always provide accurate, complete, and truthful information. But what if that is not so?
The DSS unit in question has taken numerous actions against us in 4 1/2 years and we always wondered why it was that they were allowed to do that in an instant, with no warning, no due process, etc. I happened to come across, online, copies of the handbooks that the state issues to the DSS units as guidelines to follow the rules and laws. In reading through them, I discovered that this DSS unit has violated our rights and state and federal laws many times.
Through the course of what we have experienced personally, and what we have heard from others, the workers at this DSS unit are a strange mix of arrogance, maliciousness, and ignorance. One employee, who was let go soon after, made the statement to us, "Don't rock the boat....they can make your life very miserable if they don't like you." We have had employees complain....to us....about their training in Albany and how much they don't like that. One supervisor said to us, "Frankly, I don't care about your health. We need our paperwork, or we get audited!" Clients should not be subjected to frustrations over internal DSS matters. They should not hear about that at all. The workers at this unit seem to have the goal of driving as many clients out of the county as possible, in order to reduce their caseloads and financial burden. And they will use whatever tactics are necessary: threats, coercion, withholding and concealing information, etc.
Federal and state laws are set up to make certain that the rights of clients are maintained....that they always have fair opportunity to present their side in a dispute with DSS and offer their "good cause" for consideration, before any decision is rendered.
We have never had that. In at least 6 instances or more, the DSS has issued a Notice of Decision with no prior Notice of Intent or Notice of Conciliation or Warning Letter, as was required. We have never had the opportunity to present our side to a third party or anyone, prior to Decision. That completely violates our civil rights and state and federal laws. In the course of all of this, we have both also been falsely accused of intentionally misrepresenting an impairment....based on nothing at all. The rules state that there must be very clear medical evidence for that....which the DSS has not had.
There has been very little oversight from the state, to put this DSS unit in check. In 2019, we had 2 New York State Fair Hearings on the same day, the first for my wife and the second for me. The administrative law judge was an hour late, having been tied up with other cases in other counties earlier in the day and had more to go to after ours. He was very rushed and did not assimilate the information presented to him very well. He did note that the DSS failed to issue a Notice of Intent in my wife's case, prior to issuing a sanction against her, but he missed other points. We have a recording of my wife's Fair Hearing, because we requested one. On the record, at one point, the primary representative for the DSS makes this statement: "There is a lot of information here and we have not gone through every single document." That sailed right past the judge, as he was riffling through papers and not paying enough attention to what was being said. The DSS was sanctioning my wife for intentionally misrepresenting an impairment, yet here was a blatant admission that they had not even bothered to examine every medical document in evidence! The judge's subsequent decision was in my wife's favor, due to the lack of Notice of Intent, but he sure missed a lot. The Fair Hearing for me was even more rushed and went worse.
The DSS wanted to discontinue my assistance for failure to pursue SSI. I had been assigned an appointment for a medical exam by IMA. I requested that the appointment date be changed. The SSI consultant not only refused my right to a different date, but denied my whole application based on the fact that I did not go to the appointment on the assigned date. Everyone has the federal right to change an appointment date. The DSS had failed to allow me to present "good cause" to them....that my federal right was withheld from me. The judge, in his rushing through, did not grasp it. His subsequent decision found in favor of the DSS. All he focused on was the fact that I did not keep the assigned appointment, not that my right to change the appointment date was taken away from me. His decision showed confusion, in that he thought that it was IMA that refused the change, when it was actually the SSI consultant who was at fault....yet he did not note that the refusal violated my rights. He also failed to note that the DSS had not issued a Notice of Intent. That, in and of itself, should have negated their action.
The judge seemed to be very preoccupied with my wife's case. I had represented her, because she had not been able to attend due to health problems. When both Fair Hearings were over, and everyone was getting ready to leave, some very interesting things happened.
First, the judge came over to me and in what seemed like a casual way, asked me what I thought my and my wife's plans would be now. I said that we would be considering a possible lawsuit against the doctor involved in the situation. (We subsequently determined that the issue was a fault of DSS, not the doctor.)
At that point, the judge said, "You're not gonna sue us, are ya?" I said no. Then he said, "Well, that's good to know!"
I gathered up my papers and was getting into my hat and jacket and realized that the judge had taken the DSS representative aside for a little talk. He obviously didn't realize that his voice was carrying. This is what I overheard:
"Do you have any idea how generous these folks are being, in not suing us? If they did, they would have us! Don't ever do this again. You could get us all in a lot of very serious trouble!"
Then I walked out the door. I had a 3-mile walk ahead of me to get back home, with the last leg of it being up a very steep hill. I was very tired by the end and promptly forgot about what the judge had said.
When I started deeply investigating all of this, what he said came back to the surface in memory. Throughout my wife's Fair Hearing, the judge had been asking the DSS representatives why they thought they could raise not getting the information they wanted fast enough, to the level of intentionally misrepresenting an impairment. There was no evidence of anything like that whatsoever.
That was in 2019. In 2021, they did the very same thing to me. The idea was that the DSS had no medical information on file for me subsequent to August of 2019. The fact is, I completed 6 doctors' appointments subsequent to that time. I called those doctors' offices and was told that at no point in time had anyone from the DSS contacted them for any information, even though I sign HIPAA release forms for the DSS every year so that they can access my medical records at any time they choose. They accused me of intentionally misrepresenting an impairment, without attempting to access any information whatsoever. I had x-rays and MRI reports on file at DSS. They did not request new ones. They did not request that I be examined by IMA. They did not issue a Notice of Intent. At the end of the day on a Friday, I received a Warning Letter in the mail. It stated that I had 10 days to respond before they made a decision. Nevertheless, 24 hours later I received a Notice of Decision of a sanction. The two were dated for consecutive days. Complete violation of rights and laws.
I requested a Fair Hearing. It dragged on without being scheduled. Four months later, after repeated letters to the state, someone somewhere evidently figured out that the situation was untenable and the county withdrew the sanction. But the Fair Hearing, to attempt to resolve other matters, still has not been scheduled.
At this point, no state Fair Hearing could ever properly address everything that has been done to us.
Rights violated, laws broken, false accusations and ruined reputations, monumental stress on a daily basis for years that has further wrecked our already debilitated health conditions. We have been treated like dirt and put through pure hell by this DSS unit.
We want to sue for damages. This is not some little dispute over theft from Walmart. This is systematic abuse. We have very good reason to believe that we are not the only victims in all of this. The attitudes and practices of this DSS unit make it highly likely that they have not been abiding by the rules and laws in many client cases for a lot of years. It seems like they thought no one would find out about it.
We keep very thorough records. Once I found copies of the handbooks and read through them, I was able to piece together every single instance of disregard for our rights and for the laws. I have it all 100% documented and put together. We have the DSS "dead-to-rights". They have no legitimate excuses and zero defense for what they have done.
Since I uncovered all of this, and called out both the DSS and Albany over it and let them know that we know at last what has been going on, they have all been stonewalling and attempting to evade. They have even attempted to cite incorrect information to try to deflect us off the trail. Now that we are in possession of copies of their own handbooks, that is impossible.
Now, the question arises: What attorneys handle cases like this? So far, civil attorneys whom we have contacted don't take this type of case. LawNY says that their particular funding does not cover cases where clients are seeking damages.
Being that federal laws have been broken, we can bring this to federal court and select an attorney outside of our state of residence, because it is a 'federal question', correct?
It seems like this would be quite a lucrative case for the right attorney. We have all of the evidence in our favor, and the DSS has blatantly engaged in wrongdoing that has no defense. We will not be seeking chicken feed. And there are all those other potential clients who may very well have been subjected to the same kinds of unlawful abuse.
This DSS unit needs to be seriously investigated. Client records needs to be gone through with a fine-tooth-comb by a federal agency. Something that would make the state audits that they complain about pale in comparison.
Thanks a lot for reading all of this and also for any advice and suggestions.
