Database Error Costs Social Security Victims $500M 299
Hugh Pickens writes "The Washington Posts reports that the Social Security Administration has agreed to pay more than $500 million in back benefits to more than 80,000 recipients whose benefits were unfairly denied after they were flagged by a federal computer program designed to catch serious criminals. At issue is a 1996 law, which contained language later nicknamed the 'fleeing felon' provision, that said fugitives were ineligible to receive federal benefits. As part of its enforcement, the administration began searching computer databases to weed out people who were collecting benefits and had outstanding warrants. The searches captured dozens of criminals, including some wanted for homicide, but they also ensnared countless elderly and disabled people accused of relatively minor offenses such as shoplifting or writing bad checks and in some cases, the victims simply shared a name and a birth date with an offender." (Read more, below.)
"The lead plaintiff in the class-action suit, Rosa Martinez, 52, of Redwood City, Calif., was cut off from her $870 monthly disability benefit check in January 2008 because the system had flagged an outstanding drug warrant in 1980 for a different Rosa Martinez from Miami. Officials said it is difficult to estimate how many social security recipients might be affected by the agreement but said the number is fewer than 1 percent nationally. 'What's remarkable about this case is thesheer number of individuals who were unfairly denied benefits and the size of the financial settlement they will receive,' said David H. Fry of Munger, Tolles & Olson, one of the pro bono attorneys who represented victims."
Not a database error (Score:5, Insightful)
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Wat do you suggest they use?
I mean, it should be SSN, but then they would have to because no private company is allowed to use it; which lowers its value to ID thieves immensely.
In fact, that would halt most wide spread mass ID theft in the US.
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Unsigned bigint auto-increment.
You can be number 1.
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Um, this is the one agency that SHOULD USE THE SSN!!!
Think about it.
And if they can't keep the reused ones straight, based on date of birth, well, there is no way we can manage anything.
This is not rocket science. If you want to use names, perhaps ya gotta check for duplicates and refer it to a human to do some research and decide which one is the crook and which one is not. Actually, since we should not be denying anyone benefits, you keep paying both until you figure it out.
And this is the Government you
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Oh. So are you covered if your dead?
Are you covered if you're in prison?
Are you covered if you aren't actually listed in the system?
Do we cover resident aliens? Am I one? What does the system say I am?
Seriously, the 'everybody's covered' concept doesn't even work in places where 'everyone's covered'. Like Canada for example. I wonder about Germany, though they might. Norway? Wouldn't be suprised. France? Bahaha!
Again, ease up on the naivete. It is nontrivial, and not a certainty, that the system will
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Um - No, not yet at least (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, even SSN are not 'unique'. They try and keep it unique for each generation, but they've already started reusing numbers.
SSNs are not currently re-used. They may potentially be reissued but we are talking 50+ years from now. See http://www.ssa.gov/history/hfaq.html [ssa.gov]
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Re:Um - No, not yet at least (Score:5, Insightful)
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Liar, I called that number and he didin't answer. It was some damn La Rasa member! Probably in training to be a supreme court justice.
Re:Um - No, not yet at least (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Um - No, not yet at least (Score:4, Informative)
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they don't pass information to law enforcement agencies
Have you contacted your Representative and Senators?
You might be stuck if they are Democrats kissing La Rasa's ass, but if local Republicans make an issue of it, that might "stimulate" you Congressmen to act out of self-defense.
I spend untold hours every year correcting entries
Get a new SSN?
Re:Not a database error (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Not a database error (Score:5, Interesting)
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And for those, there's the American Plan [wikipedia.org] to get them back home again, if they're considered a big enough pain in the ass to the Feds to go get them. What could possibly go wrong?
Re:Not a database error (Score:4, Funny)
If they're not already burning in hell, I'd quite like to shove a bottle of Dave's Insanity Sauce up their ring.
Any
I don't have the words to describe how shite it is.
Smiff: "But it does send emails!"
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Well, it could if it suggested that the government be put in charge of life-and-death healthcare decisions. But given TFA that might look silly.
Re:Not a database error (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem was not the choice of primary key. The problem was the way in which the people in charge of the process failed to consider the possibility of false positives.
more than 80,000 recipients whose benefits were unfairly denied... The searches captured dozens of criminals
"dozens?" Let's be generous and say 50. 50 out of 80,000 is a 99.9% rate of false positives. Not good.
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Let's be generous and say 50.
On the contrary, with a floor of 24 and an an infinite ceiling, 50 is quite a conservative definition of "dozens!"
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Actually, no one I've ever met used the term "dozens" when the total being discussed was more than a gross. For the sake of argument, let's say that they captured 150 criminals. Yes, that certainly justifies denying benefits to thousands of people. (sarcasm, people, sarcasm)
One would think .... (Score:3, Insightful)
And our non-representative representatives in Congress wonder why so many people don't trust them to run the healthcare system.
I can see it now
We're sorry Matt Hew Johnson, we accidentally removed your leg as per operation instructions intended for Matthew Johnson down the hall. Now I know you think you got the bad end of the deal. I mean you loosing your leg and him getting the heart transplant you expected, but before you start complain
Completely Offtopic (Score:2, Insightful)
Has the healthcare "protesting" spilled into other discussions now? This is the second post already that I've read that's completely offtopic. Are you being encouraged to shout down *everyone*?
Also, to respond directly to your post, how is your scenario of mistaking "Matt Hew Johnson" with "Matthew Johnson" in adjacent rooms relevant to anything?
It sure would be great to hear a logical argument against government healthcare that couldn't be countered with, "but how is that any different than what we alrea
Re:One would think .... (Score:5, Insightful)
You know, military healthcare in general gets a lot of negative attention, but it's still better than any private program I've ever had. The idea of "death boards" is absolutely ridiculous -- the military will do anything in its power to treat someone, even if it means flying them halfway across the globe. And there's certainly no higher incidence of incompetence in military providers than in the civilian sector, especially when you consider that many military medical personnel moonlight at local clinics and hospitals.
Choosing between a few days of bedrest in a hospital with some peeling paint, making years of payments to cover my deductible/spending cap, or filing for bankruptcy, and in either case possibly losing my coverage and the ability to get new insurance, I'd pick the former. With insurance companies competing based on who can deny the most coverage, and most people unable to even chose their insurers in the first place (in any meaningful way), the state of healthcare in the US has nowhere to go but up.
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"I read something along these lines at some point...."
Reading everything you can get your hands on is good.
Believing everything you read is not so good. Errr, bad, actually. No, no, it's really so unspeakably stupid........ Tell, me, do you happen to swing through the trees, eat bananas, and engage in group grooming with your family members?
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Mod points for wit, LMAO
But, IMHO, Dubya didn't "steal" that election. It was a close race that came down to a few votes in one state. The dems were just sore losers, and accusations of stolen elections are just sour grapes.
The losing party should have put a more credible candidate out there to beat the chimp. (BTW - how DOES it feel to put your support behind a man who CAN be beaten by a chimp? ROFLMAO)
How on earth... (Score:5, Insightful)
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It is bad database design to use first and last names as primary keys. You usually want to use something unique like SSN.
Health Insurance companies used to do that as well, I had the same name as my father but a different middle name and different birth date and SSN. But the darned Health Insurance companies used to claim they were double billed when I saw the same doctor as my father and I lived at the same address. I eventually had to see different doctors and get a different insurance company. But even b
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Unique Enough? (Score:3, Insightful)
"Unique Enough" isn't.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthday_attack [wikipedia.org]
Careful with your use of astronomically low.
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"Unique Enough" isn't.
It's unique enough for now. The current population of the US is a little over 300 million. There are 1 billion possible Social Security numbers. There haven't been 1 billion people alive in the US since Social Security started, and there won't be for probably 50-75 years, at which point they'd have to start reusing numbers of people that died 100 years earlier. Hopefully by then the government will have added another few digits, which would be enough to last for another thousand years or so.
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Q20: Are Social Security numbers reused after a person dies?
A: No. We do not reassign a Social Security number (SSN) after the number holder's death. Even though we have issued over 415 million SSNs so far, and we assign about 5 and one-half million new numbers a year, the current numbering system will provide us with enough new numbers for several generations into the future with no changes in the numbering system.
Re:How on earth... (Score:5, Insightful)
The thing about UNIVERSAL public health care is...
It's actually not very important if you correctly identify who is getting health care.
Your doctor needs to know who you are, and lab results need to be correctly tied to samples, and so on. But that's not a function of who's paying the bills.
But for determining if the doctors and labs get paid? Not so much.
Basically, all you really need to know is, "is this person a citizen or lawful immigrant?" and "is this procedure covered by the system?". It's not so important to know WHICH citizen or lawful immigrant. It's nice to get it right, but your medical history doesn't need to be part of your public health insurance ID, so it's not critical to treatment.
Different keying problem.
That being said... I'm amazed at how many people think there's some huge government conspiracy out to get them when they can't get simple stuff like this right. Sure, they can listen in on all cell phone calls... but they can't keep a list properly?
Re:How on earth... (Score:4, Informative)
With the current bill in congress, you don't even have to be a lawful immigrant. Perhaps that's why the government going to count the illegal aliens in the 2010 census. (presumably not asking their immigration status)
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Illegal aliens have ALWAYS been counted in the census, regardless of who was in charge. Stop watching Fox Noise and go do some reading, starting with the Constitution. It says nothing about citizenship or immigration status. The present controlling language is in the 14th Amendment:
"Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed."
Even knowing how ignorant people are, it still
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I mean, it's not like private industry insurers ever deny valid claims (exactly what Social Security did here), now is it? The only difference is they do it routinely and intentionally, and consider it a business practice instead of an error. Does that bother you equally, or not? Do you have any reason to belie
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You took my snark way too seriously.
But while I'm here, another thing nobody ever brings up. Seems every couple of weeks some timeserver leaves his laptop on a train with 300 million records on it. Don't think that'll happen with your medical records? Why is nobody talking about this?
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"some timeserver"
errrr what is a timeserver? Just a p[rivate worker? public worker? both?
I haven't seen the slang.
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An ergonomic chair warmer.
An electronic paper pusher.
One half of a birther pair.
A mobile organic coffee recycling system.
Copy room wall supporter.
Did I miss any descriptive terms?
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I don't know what a timeserver is, but I do know the govt. agency I am familiar with is now mandating full disk encryption with machine-generated passwords for all mobile storage, including laptops and memory sticks, which is certainly a good idea.
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So how you gonna remember a random string of characters to unencrypt yo
Re:How on earth... (Score:5, Insightful)
LET'S LET THEM RUN HEALTH CARE NEXT!
Yes, let's.
On the one hand, are you under some delusion that your health insurance company is somehow doing a better job? With greater reliability, efficiency, and accountability? Fewer errors, fewer denied valid claims?? Do you just take it on faith, or do you have any evidence at all that your insurance company is doing a better job?
Re:How on earth... (Score:4, Funny)
On the one hand, are you under some delusion that your health insurance company is somehow doing a better job? With greater reliability, efficiency, and accountability? Fewer errors, fewer denied valid claims?? Do you just take it on faith, or do you have any evidence at all that your insurance company is doing a better job?
Well they're making tons of money, so they must be doing something right! =D
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Well they're making tons of money, so they must be doing something right! =D\
Yes, but is it providing health care to those who need it? Or is it providing health care until you need it?
Turns out the latter is much more profitable. That's what shareholders want. But is that what anyone looking for health care actually wants?
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Yes, but is it providing health care to those who need it? Or is it providing health care until you need it?
*blank stare*
They're making money. Whatever they're doing, they're doing it right.
I like money.
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I like money.
Until you need health care.
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Pretty sure I'll still like money then too. :)
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If I could get a monopoly on oxygen, I sure as hell could make lots of money - no matter what else I did wrong.
When you have a de-facto monopoly on life (Nobody aside from the top 0.1% get to chose their own health insurance - it's whatever their employer picks, which boils down to "what's the cheapest plan we can reasonably get away with") and rake in a 30% profit margin every year - even in a down economy... why, exactly, should you care about improving, well, anything?
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Well they're making tons of money, so they must be doing something right!
Just like the phone companies, right? ;-)
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I like how you leapt from assumption to assumption until you landed at your preferred conclusion.
This is why the health care reform debate is a shit-flinging monkey fight.
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I like how you leapt from assumption to assumption until you landed at your preferred conclusion.
I'm curious what you think my conclusion was.
The only assumption I made was that the parent poster has zero data whatsoever that would demonstrate that the people currently running health care aren't making worse mistakes / decisions.
And my conclusion, for the record, really wasn't that government health care would be better or more reliable or anything. My point was that before we label the government as catego
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That was a pretty poor assumption, since I never insinuated any such thing. The point began and ended with noting that the U.S. federal government is well-known for its gaffes, and that they're never referenced in any debate on health reform.
I don't know why you took such a simple idea and ran for the hills with it, but
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The point began and ended with noting that the U.S. federal government is well-known for its gaffes, and that they're never referenced in any debate on health reform.
And my counter point was that the private enterprise is known for its gaffes too, and covering them up, and denying any accountability. Not to mention operating at a far lower level of scrutiny. And all this isn't referenced either.
I don't know why you took such a simple idea and ran for the hills with it
If by "ran for the hills with it", you
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Re:How on earth... (Score:5, Insightful)
If I had a real point, that would have been one of them. Single-payer proponents all point to a lot of other governments to say how great it is. It's harder to make the case that the U.S. government can do as well. For example, Medicare is enduring severe cost overruns and is rife with corruption.
Nobody ever talks about how great the U.S. government would be. They always say "it's working great in Australia!" Which can be perfectly true, but irrelevant, unless we adopt the Australian system, every jot and tittle--or hire Australia to run our health care system as well.
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As an Australian, I'm a bit surprised that we're held up as any kind of model for health insurance.
The previous government insituted a 30% rebate on healthcare insurance, to help prop-up those companies with taxpayers funds. You get that back at tax time. Even with the rebate enticing people in, health insurance has risen many times since this policy came in.
If you choose not to be in the private healthcare system, you pay a penalty at tax time that increases by 2% every year from 30 onwards. I think it's a
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But that's not 300 million people now is it? So you just pick whatever suits you?
I guess you havent let a tooth rot out. If you had,...
I was in my early twenties, broke, and living on my own. After I spent an hour just rocking back and forth on the floor waiting for the pain to subside, well past the point where I had already tried to use a pair of pliers on it but couldn't get a grip... a friend took me to the hospital.
You obviously worry constantly about
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The error rates for this in government is several orders of magnitudes smaller then in private companies.
You ahve a lot more avenues for recourse in a government system.
DB indexed on the wrong key, obviously ... (Score:3, Insightful)
But I imagine they do not, with the exception of ID fraud, share a Social Security number?
Re:DB indexed on the wrong key, obviously ... (Score:5, Informative)
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I expect them to vote "No", on the grounds that they don't know whether it's a good bill or not. Sure, whoever gave them the document said it was a good bill, but a Congressman should know better than to trust another Congressman.
davidh
Re:DB indexed on the wrong key, obviously ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, but when a 1500 page bill lands on a congresscritter's desk 2-3 days before the vote, what do you expect?
As someone else replied, I expect them to vote against that 1500 (or 500, or 100 or 2) page bill that they haven't had time to read.
Re:DB indexed on the wrong key, obviously ... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:DB indexed on the wrong key, obviously ... (Score:4, Interesting)
And that's what happens (Score:5, Interesting)
when you make everybody do the job that the police are supposed to be doing. Who thought it would be a good idea for Social Security people to be screening criminals? (Newt Gingrich and his Contract on America congress in 1996, that's who). Screening criminals is what the police should be doing. What's next? Is the FBI going to be paving the roads?
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Or the IRS and SSA enforcing Health Insurance regulations?
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That would explain why there are potholes big enough to stop any gataway car in its tracks.
What a stupid law. (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not getting this law. First off, social security isn't some charity program, paid for by other taxpayers. It is money that the citizens/criminals paid into the system and deserve to get back, regardless of what else they have done in life. Besides, are we really doing ourselves a favor by denying ex-cons their own money that they need to survive in their old age?
Furthermore, if it really is about current fugitives, then wouldn't the government love to know a mailing address for these people so they can arrest them, rather than just refusing SS payment?
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Isn't that an even better reason to be deeply distrustful of employer and insurance company interference in healthcare?
Defending the SS admins (Score:5, Insightful)
Okay, you geeks all confuse me. First you say that by law no one should be using the SSN as a unique identifier except for the SSA itself. Then you ask why aren't people using this unique number to avoid mistakes!!!
I don't blame the SS because they were doing what they were told to do, cut off what someone defined as criminals. The problem was the definition, and how to link SS roles with all these outstanding warrants and whatnot. Are we sure the criminal records all have SSNs? Or could it be that we did a join on some other column and hoped for the best and thought 98% was good enough? I can see a programmer being forced to do the latter by a stupid law. How many John Smiths without proper social security numbers were in the dataset they had to work with?
This was a stupid law to begin with, and probably had some stupid premises to get the information linked up. Never allow a politician to act like a project manager, they'll never get it right.
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Then you ask why aren't people using this unique number to avoid mistakes!!!
By people, you mean the SSA? Aren't they the ones who should be using the SSN/birthdate?
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By people, you mean the SSA? Aren't they the ones who should be using the SSN/birthdate?
SSA would use SSNs, Law Enforcement, i.e. the people providing the SSA with information about criminals, may not have been.
It was a very simple point. Two replies totally missed it.
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You shouldn't cut people's benefits because they share a name with someone with a bench warrant
Ah, yes, and now you understand the real problem.
next they'll make up a scret list of names that keep people off planes.
Hehe.
Lady behind the counter, just after telling me that I was on a TSA Watch List: "There must be an evil Chris Burke out there."
Me: *shifty eyes* Yeah, some other Chris Burke must be evil...
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Cut to aerial camera view... (Score:4, Funny)
I look up and shake my fist -- COBOL!!!!!!
What they needed was a primary key... (Score:2, Funny)
What they needed was some sort of primary key for their social security tables, with which to match against. Perhaps a number, unique to each individual?
Do away with it (Score:2, Informative)
We wouldn't have these problems if they simply did away with Social Security entirely. It was never meant to be a retirement plan for every citizen. It cannot possibly dole out the benefits it has promised to future generations. It is a freaking pyramid scheme, and a poorly planned one at that.
I've been paying into it for decades now, and I'd still rather they just let me cut my losses. Think of the boost to the economy if OASDI and Medicare wasn't stolen from your paycheck. That and we could get rid of the
Great news everyone! (Score:2)
By 'Social Security victims' do they mean... (Score:5, Insightful)
Urban Justice Center filed this lawsuit w/ others (Score:3, Informative)
My employer the Mental Health Project of the Urban Justice Center is one of the nonprofits on this lawsuit.
The Press Release from www.urbanjustice.org
The Social Security Administration (SSA) will repay over $500 million to 80,000 individuals whose benefits were suspended or denied since January 1, 2007, under a nationwide class action settlement which U.S. District Court Judge Claudia Wilken preliminarily approved on August 11, 2009. Many more people who were denied benefits between 2000 and 2006 will also have the chance to re-establish their eligibility. All told, more than 200,000 individuals will receive back benefits and/or have benefits re-instated under this settlement.
The settlement resolves a class action lawsuit challenging SSAâ(TM)s unlawful policy of suspending or denying benefits based on warrant information. The lawsuit, Martinez v. Astrue, disputed SSAâ(TM)s interpretation of a narrowly drawn provision of the Social Security Act, which prohibits payment of benefits to anyone "fleeing to avoid prosecution" for a felony.
Courts across the country have held that the law does not permit SSA to suspend or deny benefits without a finding that the person had the intent to flee. However, SSA had continued to suspend or deny benefits to thousands each month based only on a crude computer matching system using outstanding warrant information.
This unlawful policy has had devastating consequences on the lives of elderly and disabled individuals, many of whom rely upon Social Security benefits as their only income and, without their rightfully due benefits, have been unable to pay for rent or other basic necessities. Moreover, the absence of a functioning appeal system left people without recourse to challenge these denials for years; individuals were routinely and inaccurately told that they could not appeal these decisions, even though an appeals process does in fact exist. This settlement will allow class members â" many of whom have been rendered destitute, homeless, and dependent on relatives and charity â" to rebuild their lives.
A fairness hearing is scheduled to occur September 24, 2009, where Judge Wilken will hear any objections before deciding whether to grant final approval.
Urban Justice Center, National Senior Citizens Law Center, Disability Rights California, Legal Aid Society of San Mateo County and pro bono counsel Munger, Tolles & Olson represent plaintiffs in this class action.
Court documents and relevant materials can be found on this page. For more information, contact Emilia Sicilia.
Pro bono? (Score:3, Insightful)
I think the most shocking part of the story is that the lawyers were working pro bono on a class action case -- especially one this big.
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Xney that post. Too much vodka in the afternoon tea.
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Yeah. I apparently loaded the page in the minute between your first and second posts.
But Troll? That's a little harsh, even for /.'s idiot moderators.
Maybe "-1 - Too much vodka" :-)
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It's a class action. That means the payment is to all members of the class, possibly even potential members of the class who have not yet joined it. Class action suits are very lucrative for the attorneys involved because the payouts are so large.
Re:$500M/80K = how much? (Score:4, Informative)
What are you smoking? $500 million, divided by 80,000 people is an average of $6250 per person, total. Assuming they were all getting $870 per month, they were being paid for an average of a little over 7 months.
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He's smoking New Math Lights. With that fresh menthol flavor and less tar than competing brands, New Math Lights lets you fail at math with style!
Re:$500M/80K = how much? (Score:4, Funny)
More zip!?