[Missouri-l] Blind Pension litigation update

[Chip Hailey]

On January 11, 2010, Debbie Greider, attorney for the class of blind pensioners, attended a meeting in Jefferson City with representatives of the State, attorney, Mark Long of the Attorney General's Office, attorney Mark Gutchen, Legal Counsel for the Department of Social Services, and Dr. Jim LePage, Court-Appointed Special Master.  John Ammann, Barbara Gilchrist, Amy Sanders, and Professor Mike Alderson participated by teleconference from St. Louis.

 

At that time the State representatives discussed with Dr. LePage the issues that Mr. Long had raised with him during the Court hearing on January 17, and asked him to consider specific data and, if necessary, revise his report in light of any findings he might make regarding the data.  Dr. LePage said that he would do so.  

 

The next day, Dr. LePage sent a couple of e-mails to Mark Long requesting the data that the State had asked him to consider.  Some of the data has now been provided to Dr. LePage.

 

On January 19, 2010, Debbie Greider, John Ammann, and Barbara Gilchrist participated in a teleconference convened by Judge Joyce along with Mark Long and Mark Gutchen (Legal Counsel for the Department of Social Services).  Debbie reported that Dr. LePage had told her that he was still awaiting some data from the State;  Debbie  told the Judge that Dr. LePage said that he could complete his report within 3 weeks of receipt of the data.  Mark Long informed the Court and Plaintiffs' attorneys that he was not sure that the State had all the data that Dr. LePage had requested, that he was not sure why Dr. LePage wanted some of the data, and that in order to retrieve all the data, the State would have to request it from the Social Security Administration, pay for it, and that the retrieval process could take weeks or months.

 

Debbie reported that she was under the impression that the State had wanted Dr. LePage to consider the data that it was now reporting was unavailable.

 

Mark Long indicated that he would contact Dr. LePage and see what data was absolutely necessary to his analysis.  John Ammann suggested that averages might be a satisfactory way to deal with missing data.

 

The Judge rescheduled a status teleconference for February 18.  Plaintiffs' attorneys hope that there will be some absolute clarity with respect to the missing data by that time and that the Special Master will have been able to complete his report-addressing all the concerns raised by the State.

 

Some folks have asked whether they should raise this case and the possibility of settlement with their legislative representatives.  This question has special pertinence since the Legislative Days are scheduled for February 16 and 17.  The attorneys for the Plaintiff class will address this issue closer to the Legislative Days.  They hope that the Special Master will have completed his report by then, and that the information contained in it will prove helpful if it seems in the best interest of the class to address the matter with legislative representatives.

_____________________________________________________________

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://moblind.org/pipermail/missouri-l_moblind.org/attachments/20100120/e2f25ad6/attachment.html>