Chapter 2-400 Establishing Employment Using the EE-5 or other Evidence

1. Purpose and Scope. This chapter describes the policies and procedures for establishing claimed employment using the EE-5 or other evidence.

2. Ensuring a Covered Medical Condition is Claimed. Prior to taking any action in regard to establishing employment, the CE must ensure that there is a covered condition claimed. In addition, the CE must ensure that the claimed covered condition is a condition typically incurred as a result of working at the reported facility type and/or location. This requires the CE to review the EE-1 or EE-2 to ensure that a covered medical condition has been identified. If it is unclear whether the claimant has identified a covered medical condition, the CE must request that the claimant provide clarification. If the claimant does not claim a condition that is covered under the Act within 30 days, the CE can proceed with a denial of compensation. If the claimant claims a covered medical condition but the evidence provided is insufficient, the CE must give the claimant an additional 30 days to provide evidence supporting that he/she incurred a covered medical condition.

3. Initial Contact with the Department of Energy (DOE). Once the CE has identified a claimed covered condition, a finding must be made regarding whether or not the evidence of record is sufficient to establish proof of employment at a covered facility.

a. Referring Form EE-5 to DOE. In the majority of cases the CE must prepare an Energy employment verification package, including form EE-5, for referral to DOE. In these cases, DOE will complete and return the form EE-5. For instructions regarding employment verification for certain AWE/Be vendors, refer to PM 2-400 (9).

The package includes a cover letter, a copy of the EE-1 or EE-2, a copy of the EE-3 form and an EE-5 form. The CE completes the top portion of the EE-5 identifying the name of the employee. The completed package is then submitted to the DOE. The DOE has prepared a list of operation centers located around the country that handle record searches for various facilities (Exhibit 1).

The CE must submit the employment verification package to the appropriate DOE operations center handling record research for the claimed employer facility. If the employee was employed at multiple work sites, it may be necessary to submit separate employment verification packets to each responsible DOE operation center. The CE is responsible for updating the ECMS with a tracking code ES (EE-5 sent) upon release of the EE-5 form. The ES code must be entered for each EE-5 form sent (i.e. one for each facility).

b. 60-Day Time Frame. The DOE will be given 60 days to complete the EE-5 form. Once a completed EE-5 form has been returned, the CE must input code ER (EE-5 received) in the ECMS for each completed form, using the date the form was received in the office as the ER status date.

If the DOE fails to return the completed form within the initial 30-day period, the CE will prepare a second request for the completed EE-5. If DOE is ultimately unable to verify employment, it may be necessary to utilize other procedures as outlined in PM 2-400.5.

4. No Response from DOE. If the CE does not receive a response from DOE within 60 days, additional development will be necessary.

a. Contact DOE by telephone. If no response is received, the CE contacts the Record Center by telephone. The CE will ask the Record Center contact whether a response to employment verification is forthcoming. If DOE responds via telephonic communication that they have no records to verify employment, the CE documents the case file with a memo outlining DOE’s response. This will serve as the “EE-5” for purposes of a DOE response.

b. Contact the claimant. After 60 days with either no response or a response that no records are available from DOE, the CE will contact the claimant for additional employment information (unless the information has already been provided and is in the case file). The ECMS must be updated with code DE. For information regarding the typeof verification required, see PM 2-400 (7). If the CE does not receive a response from the claimant or the information received is insufficient, the CE may request employment information from the Social Security Administration (SSA) after obtaining a release from the claimant (see PM 2-400(5)).

5. Response from the DOE. If the completed EE-5 is returned, the CE must review the information provided and consider the response and/or comments of the DOE.

a. If the DOE concurs. If the DOE concurs with the location and period of employment identified by the claimant, the CE will accept the EE-5 as proof of employment. However, the CE must still make a separate finding as to whether or not the evidence establishes covered employment. See PM 2-500

6. Evidence of Employment. Evidence of employment by the DOE, a DOE contractor, or atomic weapons employer may be made by the submission of any trustworthy contemporaneous records that on their face or in conjunction with other such records, establish that the employee was so employed, and the time period of such employment. It should be noted that the regulations provide a wide latitude regarding the type of evidence that can be used to prove covered employment. It is not necessary for the claimant to provide proof of employment beyond all reasonable doubt. It is sufficient to merely establish that it is more likely than not that the employee was employed at the claimed facility at the times claimed. Accordingly, the CE must use ample discretion regarding documentation that reasonably establishes the presence of the employee at a particular facility during certain periods of time. Documentation from the following sources may be considered:

a. Records or documents created by any federal government agency (including verified information submitted for security clearance), any tribal government or any state, county, city or local government office, agency, department, board or other entity or other public agency or office.

b. Records or documents created as a byproduct of any regularly conducted business activity or by an entity that acted as a contractor or subcontractor to the DOE.

c. Affidavits or other types of signed statements attesting to the accuracy of a historical claim. The CE should ask the claimant to use the EE-4 Employment History Affidavit to collect statements from knowledgeable parties. Statements provided by way of an affidavit should be considered in light of other evidence submitted in support of a claim. However, in situations where there is

a lack of corroborating evidence, an affidavit may be considered sufficient to establish the accuracy of factual claims.

7. Review of Evidence. Once all evidence from DOE, the claimant or SSA has been received, the CE must determine the period of employment that has been verified. The CE must evaluate all evidence carefully in making this determination. Once employment is verified, the CE will determine the period of covered employment (See PM2-500). If the evidence is insufficient to verify any periods of employment, the CE will issue a recommended decision denying the claim.

8. Verifying Employment through Social Security Administration. After all attempts to verify employment through other means have been exhausted, the CE will request additional information from SSA.

a. Obtain release from the claimant. Once the CE determines that SSA information is required to verify employment, the CE should prepare a letter to the claimant for release of information. The claimant should be advised that additional employment verification is necessary. A form SSA-581, “Authorization to Obtain Earnings Data from SSA,” should be enclosed (Exhibit 6). The claimant should be asked to sign and return the SSA-581 form to DEEOIC.

b. Send request to SSA. Once the claimant’s release has been obtained, the CE will prepare a package for SSA referral. The package to SSA includes a cover letter requesting SSA to perform an earnings search on the named employee. Attached to the cover letter is form SSA-581 that indicates the name of the employee, employee SSN, and the years of employment to be researched. Upon release of the package to the SSA, the CE will input code SS into ECMS.

c. Response from SSA. Depending on the response from the SSA, the CE is to either accept the period of employment as verified or deny the claimed period of employment due to lack of viable documentation. The CE should document receipt of the SSA response by entering code SR into ECMS.

9. Employment Verification of Designated AWE/Be Vendors. This section describes the actions the CE is to take for employment verification at designated AWE/Be vendors. The DOE has produced three lists naming facilities for which they (1) are unable to obtain any employment verification documentation, (2) have identified a corporate employment verifier or (3) have access to employment records (Exhibit 2, 3 & 4). The CE must reference these lists to ascertain the correct routing procedure for employment verification. If the CE identifies an facility named on either list 1 or 2, they must insert into the case file a copy of the DOE Verification of Employment Memorandum (Exhibit 5). This will serve as an acknowledgement by DOE that they have no employment information to provide.

a. List 1: No Corporate Verifier. This list provides the names of AWE and Be vendor facilities where the DOE has no employment records and has not been able to locate a verifier.

(1) For a claimed employer appearing on List 1: No Corporate Verifier, the CE will review all evidence substantiating employment. The CE should be aware of the fact that the amount of documentation required depends on the type of claim. For example, the evidence needed to establish a beryllium claim is the presence of the employee at a designated vendor at any time during a covered time period. For a non-SEC cancer claim, the CE must verify the entire period of employment claimed.

(2) If the evidence for any period of claimed employment is deficient, the CE must prepare correspondence to the claimant requesting additional information and include a blank SSA-581 form. The CE will advise the claimant that the SSA-581 should be completed for the reason that it may become necessary for the Department of Labor to obtain earnings records from the SSA. Once the correspondence is prepared and released to the claimant, ECMS is to be updated with a DE status code.

(3) The claimant is to be provided up to sixty days to respond. If after sixty days, the claimant does not produce any new evidence or provides evidence that does not support the period of claimed employment, the CE should prepare the case for referral to SSA.

Depending on the response from the SSA, the CE is to either accept the period of employment as verified or deny the claimed period of employment due to lack of viable documentation. The CE must document receipt of the SSA response by entering code SR into ECMS.

b. List 2: Known Corporate Verifiers. This list provides the names of AWE and Be vendor facilities where the DOE has identified a corporate entity that owns the facilities’ employment records. Moreover, the list will provide specific instruction for how each corporate entity is to be contacted with requests for employment verification.

(1) For any employer appearing on List 2: Known Corporate Verifiers, the CE must review the “Contacting Instructions” provided by the DOE. This is an attachment to List 2 that provides details concerning how a CE is to contact individual corporate verifiers. Each corporate verifier has particular requirements concerning the information to be provided. These corporations have no obligation to supply information to DOL, as there is no formal contract or payment to them. Therefore, it is important that the CE complies with the instructions provided.”

(2) It is not necessary for the CE to submit a copy of documentation from the case file to the corporate

verifier. Instead, a cover letter providing the details of the request is to be submitted. In most cases, the cover letter will include the employee name, SSN, date of birth, employer name and the dates of claimed employment. The CE will input code CS into ECMS, to represent a request for evidence from a corporate verifier.

(3) Once the CE has received a response from the corporate verifier, code CR must be entered into ECMS. The CE will then review any response to determine if it is sufficient to verify the claimed period of employment. If the corporate verifier affirms the entire period of employment being claimed, the CE is to accept the period as factual. If the corporate verifier is unable to substantiate the claimed period of employment or can substantiate a portion of it, the CE is to request additional information from the claimant. (The CE must remember that if verification is for a beryllium or CBD case, the CE need not verify all employment, only enough employment sufficient to substantiate the exposure at any time during a covered time period, see PM2-700). In particular, the CE will need to advise the claimant that the DOL has been unable to verify employment for certain dates through independent means. Moreover, the claimant is to submit any contemporaneous documentation substantiating employment for any unverified period of employment. Code DE is to be input in any instance where the CE is sending an inquiry to the claimant requesting employment evidence.

(4) Upon receipt of additional evidence, the CE will review it to determine whether it is sufficient to make a finding accepting the claimed period of employment as factual.

d. For any employer that appears on List 3: DOE Verifiers, the CE will need to prepare an employment package for referral to the DOE Workers’ Advocacy Office in Germantown, Maryland.

(1) The CE will prepare a referral package containing an EE-5 form with the top portion completed by the CE, a copy of the primary claim form and a copy of the EE-3 Employment History form. The package will then be sent to the Germantown Office for the EE-5 to be completed. The CE must update the ECMS with the ES status code. When DOE completes the EE-5 and returns it to the DO, the CE must update ECMS with the ER status code.

e. Any other employment claimed by the employee should continue to be verified through the appropriate operations center listed on the EEOICPA Claims Routing Guidance List.