The National Senior Citizens Law Center has published a fact sheet on a class action lawsuit settlement (Martinez) that states, in most situations, the Social Security Administration can not stop the payment of benefits because a recipient has an outstanding arrest warrant. The settlement also provides for corrective measures, including the repayment of benefits, for recipients whose benefits were withheld or terminated because of an outstanding warrant.

The settlement specifically provides the following:

1. Social Security cannot deny or stop benefits because of most outstanding arrest warrants;
2. Social Security must stop collecting overpayments based on most outstanding warrants;
3. For 80,000 people, Social Security must pay back all benefits that they didn’t pay or that they collected as overpayments, which may total over $500 million dollars.

The settlement applies to recipients of the follwoing kinds of benefits:

• Social Security
• Supplemental Security Income (SSI)
• Special Veterans Benefits (SVB)

Read the Fact Sheet