Court Opinion

ID: 9470437
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 03:06:09.756828+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:41:53.314010
License: Public Domain

NATHANIEL R. JONES, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
In the first appeal of this case, this Court held that the district court lacked jurisdiction to entertain the merits of the claim, but allowed the district court discretion to permit plaintiff to remedy the jurisdictional defect by filing an amended complaint. Gosnell v. Califano, 625 F.2d 744, 745-46 (6th Cir.1980). After the complaint was amended, however, the majority concluded that it failed to raise a colorable constitutional claim' because “[t]he Constitution does not exempt citizens from the responsibility of maintaining their own records.” See pp. 218-219, supra.
I agree with the majority that the Secretary’s refusal to reopen the 1964 and 1968 applications was not a denial of due process. However, my conclusion is based upon former 20 C.F.R. § 404.957 which provided for the reopening of a final determination for “good cause” as long as the request is made “within 4 years after the .. . initial determination” is made. In the instant case, the ALJ concluded that he was precluded from reopening the 1964 and 1968 determinations because, inter alia, they were more than four years old; this ruling was correct. I concur separately, however, because I disagree with the majority’s implicit conclusion that the burden of showing error on the record encompasses the burden of producing the record as well.
In the instant case, appellant’s 1964 and 1968 applications for disability benefits were denied both initially and upon reconsideration; however, in 1976 an administrative law judge determined that his period of disability began on December 31, 1964. To the extent that a claimant has the burden of establishing error on the face of the record as well as establishing the record to reopen an application, I think that shifting the burden of production of the record to the claimant is impermissible.
The Records Management Guide1 requires the Department of Health and Human Services to maintain all records of applicant files for a period of twenty years. This provision places the responsibility for the maintenance of records upon the Secretary. Thus, it is a due process violation to shift to the claimant the burden of producing the records in order to establish error therein, where the Secretary is unable to locate them. Although I agree that there is *220no due process violation by virtue of the Secretary’s refusal to reopen the applications, I construe the claimant’s burden to produce the relevant records as an impermissible shifting of the burden in light of the Secretary’s responsibility for maintaining such records pursuant to the Records Management Guide. To the extent the Secretary requires a claimant to produce records under these circumstances, the claimant is impermissibly deprived of access to them and to due process.

. The administrative policy for the retention of Social Security records that was applicable during the period from 1964 to 1976 requires the Social Security Administration to:
transfer to the Federal Records Center after expiration of the reconsideration period and identification as eligible for transfer by the Case Control System. Destroy when 20 years old.
Records Management Guide OCD-g:40-2 (November 23, 1981).