Background

This transmittal amends chapter I-2-1 of the Hearings, Appeals and Litigation Law (HALLEX) manual to reorganize information regarding how hearing office staff develops evidence due to a recent change in regulations on the submission of evidence.

Explanation of Content and Changes

In addition to minor revisions, we made the following changes:

I-2-1-1 – We moved the information previously in this section to section I-2-1-5 and completely deleted this section.

I-2-1-5 A – We added this subsection and titled it “General.” We moved information formerly in I-2-1-1 into this subsection.

I-2-1-5 B – We added this subsection and titled it “Prehearing Analysis for Obtaining Evidence.” The information in this subsection describes a claimant's obligation to submit to us or inform us about all evidence, in its entirety, that relates to whether he or she is blind or disabled.

I-2-1-5 C – This subsection is titled “General Overview of Prehearing Analysis and Workup” and updates the information formerly in HALLEX I-2-1-5. We removed the bullet regarding evidence because that information is included in new subsection B. We added information regarding special accommodations and cited to relevant HALLEX provisions. We also made other minor grammatical changes.

Date: April 15, 2015