Flee Requirement in the United States

Case Law

Blakely v, Comm’r of Social Security, 2004 WL 574532 (W.D. Mich. 3/8/04)

Facts

The underlying facts are not in dispute. Plaintiff was involved in a fistfight in Montana. He was not arrested at the time. Unbeknown to the plaintiff, however, an arrest warrant related to the fight issued about a month later, after he had moved 100 miles away at the recommendation of the authorities. Six months later, the plaintiff, still unaware of the arrest warrant, moved back to his home state of Michigan. Three years later, plaintiff learned of the Montana arrest warrant during a traffic violation in Michigan. Montana refused to extradite plaintiff. Plaintiff was not physically or financially able to return to Montana on his own but volunteered to do so if Montana arranged and paid for his transportation.

Procedural history

When SSA learned of the Montana arrest warrant, they suspended plaintiff’s SSI retroactively and charged him with an overpayment. On appeal, the ALJ found that the plaintiff was not a fleeing felon, reinstated his SSI, and reversed the overpayment. The Appeals Council, on own-motion review, reversed the ALJ’s decision, determining that the plaintiff was fleeing to avoid prosecution for a felony and therefore ineligible for SSI. In federal district court in Michigan, the magistrate judge recommended that the Appeals Council’s decision be affirmed. A judge of that court disapproved the magistrate judge’s report and recommendation and ordered the plaintiff’s SSI reinstated.

The court’s reasoning

Because the Appeals Council made a finding that the plaintiff’s intent
was to flee prosecution, the court does not address the issue of whether the “fleeing felon”
prohibition in the Social Security Act requires fleeing with the intent to avoid prosecution.
Rather, the court assumes that the Appeals Council construed the Act to require such intent and went to review whether the AC’s finding on the plaintiff’s intent was supported by substantial evidence. The court concluded that the evidence in the case did not support a finding that the plaintiff fled with the intent to avoid prosecution.

Key to the court’s ruling are the following facts:

• the plaintiff had left town at the suggestion of local authorities before the arrest warrant
  issued;
•  he lived in Montana openly for 6 months without knowledge of the warrant;
• he was not aware of the arrest warrant at the time he left the state;
• after plaintiff learned of the warrant, he was willing to return to Montana but was physically and financially unable to do so without the help of the government, and
• Montana was unwilling to extradite the plaintiff.

The fact that the plaintiff did not voluntarily return to Montana after learning of the warrant, the
court ruled, was not sufficient to support the Appeals Council’s finding that he fled with the intent to flee prosecution. The court reversed and remanded the case with instructions to
reinstate plaintiff’s SSI benefits.

Conger v. Barnhart, 2003 WL 22961219 (D. Me. 12/15/03)

In this case, the magistrate judge affirms SSA’s denial of SSI eligibility on the basis of an
outstanding default warrant.

Facts

A criminal complaint for assault with a dangerous weapon issued in Massachusetts against the plaintiff. The plaintiff went to court on the return date of the charge but left the courtroom before his case was called. A default warrant issued. Sometime thereafter, the plaintiff moved to Maine. The evidence is mixed as to the reason for the move, although the plaintiff claims it was because he could no longer afford to live in Massachusetts. Massachusetts did not try to extradite the plaintiff. While in Maine, the plaintiff learned of the default warrant.

The court’s reasoning

The court assumes, for the sake of argument, that the phrase “fleeing to
avoid prosecution” should be construed to necessitate a finding of flight with intent to avoid
arrest or prosecution, but goes on to find that the ALJ made a finding of such intent that was
supported by substantial evidence. Rather than dispute the legal existence of an intent
requirement, the court disputes the plaintiff’s credibility and his evidence on the issue of intent.

The court accepted the ALJ’s conclusion that the plaintiff fled to avoid prosecution because the
evidence supported a finding that the plaintiff was aware of the charges against him before he
moved to Maine and there was not evidence to support the plaintiff’s explanation that he moved to Maine for financial reasons.