Source: http://dc.findacase.com/research/wfrmDocViewer.aspx/xq/fac.19990622_42274.CFC.htm/qx
Timestamp: 2016-12-08 06:01:19
Document Index: 677919823

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 8339', '§ 102', '§ 8339', '§ 8339', '§ 8337', '§ 8339']

| Schoemakers v. Office of Personnel Management
Schoemakers v. Office of Personnel Management
MYRTICE SCHOEMAKERS, PETITIONER,v.OFFICE OF PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT, RESPONDENT. Before Plager, Circuit Judge, Friedman, Senior Circuit Judge, and Lourie, Circuit Judge.
When Conrad Schoemakers retired as a federal employee in 1981, he was unmarried. In October 1990 he married the appellant.
After extensive administrative proceedings - an initial decision by the administrative Judge, the full Board's vacation of that decision and remand for further proceedings, and the administrative Judge's second initial decision, which became final when the Board denied review of it - the Board affirmed OPM's reconsideration decision. The Board held that it was "more likely than not that the required notices [of his right to seek an annuity for his spouse] were, in fact, delivered to Mr. Schoemakers," and therefore, he was not entitled to a waiver of the two-year filing requirement on the ground that OPM did not so notify him. The Board also rejected the claim that Mr. Schoemakers' mental condition - which "appears to have interfered with his ability to read and understand the OPM notices that he received" - justified a waiver of the two-year period. It pointed out that "[t]he statute and regulation at issue . . . make no provision for the waiver of the deadline for the mental incompetency of the annuitant."
"An employee . . . who is unmarried at the time of retiring under a provision of law which permits election of a reduced annuity with a survivor annuity payable to such employee['s] . . . spouse and who later marries, may irrevocably elect, in a signed writing received in the Office within two years after such employee . . . marries . . . [such] a reduction in the retired employee['s] . . . current annuity [and thereby provide a survivor's annuity for the spouse]." 5 U.S.C. § 8339(k)(2)(A) (1988).
Under this provision, Mr. Schoemakers' election of a reduced annuity was untimely. The issue is whether this untimeliness may be excused.
"The Director of the Office of Personnel Management shall, on an annual basis, inform each annuitant of such annuitant's rights of election under sections 8339(j) and 8339(k)(2) of title 5, United States Code." Pub. L. No. 95-317, 92 Stat. 382 (1978), as amended by Reorganization Plan No. 2 of 1978, § 102, 92 Stat. 3783 (1978) (codified at 5 U.S.C. § 8339 note (1988)).
In Brush v. Office of Personnel Management, 982 F.2d 1554, 1559 (Fed. Cir. 1992), we held that "the annual notice is mandatory." We recognized an "implied exception to [the two-year] election requirement[ ] . . . [w]here OPM fails to show that it has complied with the notice requirement under Pub.L. No. 95-317[.]" Id. at 1560. We further stated that the burden is "upon OPM to show that notice was sent," id. at 1560, and the contents thereof, see id. at 1561. If, however, OPM can "establish through credible evidence that it is more probable than not that the annual notice was sent, the burden of going forward falls upon the petitioner. The petitioner, if able to do so, must put forth such credible testimony or other evidence tending to support the contention that the annuitant in question did not receive the annual notice." Id. (footnote omitted).
1. To show that it had sent Mr. Schoemakers annual notices in the two years following his marriage, OPM relied on the affidavit of Mary-Beth Smith-Toomey, the manager of the printing and distribution of forms and notices for OPM's Retirement and Insurance Group, who stated that she was "familiar with the history of notices related to civil service annuity payments." Smith-Toomey stated that "[g]eneral notices regarding survivor elections required by Public Law 95-317 were sent to all annuitants in . . . December 1990 [and] December 1991," and during this time, such notices "were sent to all annuitants in the same manner." She explained how these notices were sent:
"On OPM's computer master annuity roll, separate addresses [were] recorded for purposes of sending payments and for sending correspondence."
"The computer generat[ed] a tape listing of all annuitants and their correspondence addresses which was sent to a private contracting firm specializing in mass mailing."
". . . The tape thus generated was used to print the name and address directly on franked, printed notices which were then mailed by the contractor."
Darsigny v. Office of Personnel Management, 787 F.2d 1555, 1559 (Fed. Cir. 1986) dealt with a similar affidavit by "a man familiar with the history of notices included with civil service checks." It stated that "Darsigny received his annuity checks via Electronic Funds Transfer directly to his bank, that the computer generated a tape, listing all annuitants . . . which was sent to the Treasury Department who then mailed the notices according to the tape" and that "no one who received the August 1981 and April 1982 payments could have been missed. Via this procedure, notices must have been sent to Maurice Darsigny since payments for those months were made." Id. We held that this affidavit was sufficient to prove the sending of the notices. See id. Although the affidavit in Darsigny did not show the identical practices the affidavit in this case disclosed and, unlike the latter, twice referred by name to the particular annuitant involved, these distinctions do not warrant rejecting the affidavit in this case as inadequate proof that OPM mailed the notices.
B. Mrs. Schoemakers contends that, even if Mr. Schoemakers received the notice, because of her husband's "mental state" at the time the notices were sent - her affidavit stated that he had "problems . . . with memory" and from "alcohol usage" - she was entitled to a waiver of the two-year statutory period for requesting a survivor's annuity. Although the Board stated that Mr. Schoemakers' "mental condition . . . appears to have interfered with his ability to read and understand the OPM notices that he received," it correctly held that Mrs. Schoemakers was not entitled to a waiver of the filing deadline.
The statute unambiguously states that to obtain a survivor's annuity the annuitant must file with OPM "a signed writing . . . within two years after such employee . . . marries." 5 U.S.C. § 8339(k)(2)(A). Nothing in either the language or the legislative history even suggests, much less indicates, that Congress intended to permit waiver of the filing deadline because of the annuitant's mental condition.
Where Congress intended to permit the waiver of filing deadlines for government annuitants because of their mental problems, it explicitly so provided. Under 5 U.S.C. § 8337(b), an application for a disability annuity must be "filed with [OPM] before the employee . . . is separated from the service or within 1 year thereafter." Congress further provided that
"[t]his time limitation may be waived by [OPM] for an employee . . . who at the date of separation from service or within one year thereafter is mentally incompetent[.]" Id.
Like the Board's administrative Judge, we sympathize with Mrs. Schoemakers' plight. Neither courts nor administrative agencies, however, have the authority to waive requirements (including filing deadlines) that Congress has imposed as a condition to the payment of federal money. See Crown v. United States R.R. Retirement Bd., 811 F.2d 1017, 1020 (7th Cir. 1986) (quoting Gressley v. Califano, 609 F.2d 1265. 1267 (7th Cir. 1979) ("A congressional mandate to pay statutory benefits . . . leaves no discretion in the agencies and courts but to limit the payment of benefits to those entitled to them.")). In § 8339(k)(2)(A), Congress provided that an unmarried federal annuitant who marries may provide a survivor's annuity for his spouse only if he applies therefore within two years of marriage. Since Mr. Schoemakers did not do that, the Board correctly refused to provide Mrs. Schoemakers with a survivor's annuity.