Young v. Commissioner of Social Security, No. 1:2020cv08976 - Document 13 (S.D.N.Y. 2021)
Court Description: ORDER granting 12 Letter Motion for Extension of Time to File. The defendant shall file the Administrative Record on or before June 1, 2021. The defendant shall serve a copy of this Memorandum Endorsement on the plaintiff and file proof of service with the Clerk of Court. SO ORDERED. (Signed by Magistrate Judge Kevin Nathaniel Fox on 3/30/2021) (va)
Download PDF
<![CDATA[
Young v. Commissioner of Social Security Doc. 13 U.S. Department of Justice United States Attorney Southern District of New York 86 Chambers Street, 3rd floor New York, NY 10007 March 29, 2021 MEMORANDUM ENDORSEMENT BY ECF Hon. Kevin N. Fox United States Magistrate Judge Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse 40 Foley Square New York, New York 10007 Re: Young v. Saul, No. 20 Civ. 8976 (PAE) (KNF) Dear Judge Fox: This Office represents the Commissioner of Social Security (the “Commissioner”), the defendant in the above-referenced action, which the plaintiff brought pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 405(g) to appeal the Commissioner’s decision to deny her application for Social Security disability benefits. I respectfully write to request a 60-day extension of time for the Commissioner to file the certified administrative record in this case, from to March 29, 2021, to May 31, 2021. The extension is needed due to delays in preparing the certified administrative record resulting from temporary workplace changes implemented by the Social Security Administration in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. As described in the attached Declaration of Jebby Rasputnis, dated February 10, 2021, these changes have significantly impacted the operations of the Social Security Administration’s Office of Appellate Operations and materially affected its ability to prepare certified administrative records and to obtain transcriptions of hearing recordings from private contractors. This is the Commissioner’s second request for an extension of time in in this case. The Court previously granted the Commissioner’s request for a 60-day extension of time to file the certified administrative record, from January 26, 2021, to March 29, 2021. I attempted to contact the plaintiff, who is appearing pro se, by telephone to determine if she consents to this request for an extension but was unable to reach her. I respectfully request that the Court nevertheless grant the extension to enable the agency time to prepare the record in this case. Dockets.Justia.com Page 2 I thank the Court for its consideration of this request. Respectfully, AUDREY STRAUSS United States Attorney BY: cc: Charlene Young (by mail) Plaintiff Pro Se /s/ Amanda F. Parsels AMANDA F. PARSELS Assistant United States Attorney Tel.: (212) 637-2780 Cell: (646) 596-1952 Email: amanda.parsels@usdoj.gov 3/30/21 The defendant shall file the Administrative Record on or before June 1, 2021. The defendant shall serve a copy of this Memorandum Endorsement on the plaintiff and file prof of service with the Clerk of Court. SO ORDERED: Kevin Nathaniel Fox, U.S.M.J. Case 1:20-cv-08976-PAE-KNF Document 12-1 Filed 03/29/21 Page 1 of 4 DECLARATION OF JEBBY RASPUTNIS OFFICE OF APPELLATE OPERATIONS SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION I, JEBBY RASPUTNIS, Executive Director of the Social Security Administration’s Office of Appellate Operations (OAO), declare and state as follows: 1) My office is responsible for, among other things, preparing certified copies of administrative records (CARs) for Federal court review when claimants appeal the final decisions of the Commissioner of Social Security. 2) Beginning in Mid-March of 2020, the Social Security Administration (agency) restricted physical access to our buildings because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Since that time, OAO has been working to overhaul, redo, refine, and streamline our business processes to continue operations and meet our mission to serve the public. Despite many challenges in transitioning to a completely new business process, we have reached and surpassed pre-pandemic levels of electronic CAR production. In the first quarter of fiscal year 2021, we processed 5,270 cases. As comparison, in the first quarter of fiscal year 2020 we processed 4,098 cases and in the first quarter of fiscal year 2019 we processed 3,970. In January of 2021, we processed slightly over 1500 cases. 3) As we worked to transition this workload, and our external vendors, to a fully virtual process, the number of new cases filed in federal court also increased 1. In the last quarter of fiscal year 2020 and the first quarter of fiscal year 2021, we averaged more than 2,257 new case receipts per month, compared to an average of 1,458 new case receipts in the See Chief Justice Roberts 2020 Year-End Report on the Federal Judiciary, Appendix Workload of the Courts, available at https://www.supremecourt.gov/publicinfo/year-end/2020yearendreport.pdf (“Cases with the United States as defendant grew 16% [in FY20], primarily reflecting increases in social security cases and prisoner petitions.”) 1 Case 1:20-cv-08976-PAE-KNF Document 12-1 Filed 03/29/21 Page 2 of 4 last quarter of fiscal year 2019 and the first quarter of fiscal year 2020. https://www.ssa.gov/appeals/DataSets/08_National_New_Court_Cases_and_Remands.ht ml. 4) Consequently, while we are now producing electronic CARs at/above pre-pandemic levels, we continue to experience a backlog due to the combination of increased new case receipts and our difficulties transitioning our processes and vendors to an electronic process. As of January 31, 2021, we have a backlog of more than 11,100 cases. 5) Much of the delay and uncertainty in the CAR production process has stemmed from how we transmit hearing recordings to our vendors, and how our vendors return completed transcripts to us. Prior to the pandemic, we produced CDs of the recordings in the office and the vendors returned paper transcripts to us. When the pandemic started, we tested and implemented a secure email process for transmitting the recordings, but, we, and the vendors, experienced systems issues requiring file chunking and delaying transmission. Despite difficulties in transmitting recordings, we were able to update all of our vendor agreements to allow for electronic return of completed transcripts. We implemented a remote CD preparation process for transmitting recordings to the vendors while continuing to explore other electronic transmission options. After several months of piloting new processes, updating vendor agreements, and making staffing changes, we have recently implemented the following: a. We eliminated the need for OAO staff to burn CDs of the administrative hearing recordings for distribution to the vendors. As of this declaration, all five of our transcription vendors now have secure access to the audio files of the hearing recordings. While we continued to use a CD process, manual Case 1:20-cv-08976-PAE-KNF Document 12-1 Filed 03/29/21 Page 3 of 4 sorting of thousands of CDs of hearing recordings resulted in difficulty prioritizing and transmitting the oldest cases for delivery to the vendors. Although each contractor works at a different speed based on their individual staffing situations, our new, secure, direct access process ensures streamlined prioritization and also eliminates CD transmittal times; b. In addition to our five vendors, we established an in-house transcription cadre of 40 employees. We are leveraging the use of new foot pedals (allowing the cadre members to more easily/quickly navigate recordings) and autotranscription software, which we estimate will increase the productivity of this cadre by 50% by the end of February; c. We have requested the assistance, as they are able, of the agency’s closed captioning staff to assist with transcription typing; d. We continue to work with each of our vendors to maximize their productivity and, recently, each of our five vendors has agreed, in varying amounts, to increase their capacity, as they are able; e. We are currently working with the agency’s Office of Acquisition and Grants to add a sixth vendor before the end of the fiscal year; f. We have recently hired an additional four Civil Action Assistants to assist with this workload and are in the process of transitioning additional staff to the in-house transcription cadre. 6) Although we remain subject to some constraints, we continue to work on increasing productivity by collaborating with our vendors and searching out and utilizing technological enhancements. We ask for continued patience as we work to increase our Case 1:20-cv-08976-PAE-KNF Document 12-1 Filed 03/29/21 Page 4 of 4 efficiency and production of CARs, reduce the current backlog, and address rising court case filings. In accordance with 28 U.S.C. §1746, I declare under penalty of perjury that the foregoing is true and correct to the best of my knowledge and belief. Dated February 10, 2021 ______________________________ _ ____ ____________ /s/ __________________ Jebby Rasputnis Jebbyy R asputnis
]]>
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You
should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google
Privacy Policy and
Terms of Service apply.
