Seniors: 90 days for an agency to resolve your case

This is a law of clocks. It gives you no new right on the merits of your case: it gives you dates for the case you already have before a government agency. It is useful exactly when a file has sat for months and nobody says why, because it lets you write a letter citing the deadline being missed instead of asking to be attended to as a favor. Note the age: this law uses sixty-seven (67) years, not sixty or sixty-five, and that figure does not match other elder statutes.

People aged sixty-seven (67) or older who are a party in an administrative proceeding before an agency. The law defines "party" as any person to whom an agency’s action is specifically directed, or who has filed a petition or complaint for the review or enforcement of an order, law or regulation, or who is designated a party in that proceeding. And it adds how they may appear: personally, through a guardian, or through a representative under a durable power of attorney granted by public deed. The definition of "agency" is extremely broad — board, body, examining tribunal, public corporation, commission, independent office, division, administration, bureau, department, authority, official, entity or instrumentality of the Government of Puerto Rico — except those excluded by Act 38-2017.

• Being sixty-seven (67) or older and a party in an administrative proceeding before an agency.Verified against the official source
• That the proceeding not be among those excluded: auctions and other informal adjudications, Treasury Department internal-revenue matters, debt issuances and capital investments, Environmental Quality Board environmental document review, and proceedings agencies have regulated to conform to federal law.Verified against the official source
• For the 30-day start: that the claim concern the health, safety and/or wellbeing of the senior.Verified against the official source

• The complaint or petition with its filing date. The thirty and ninety days count from that date — not from the hearing or the last phone call.
• If a representative appears: the durable power of attorney granted by public deed, which is the form the law names besides appearing personally or through a guardian.

1. 1

   Step 1: Check the age, because here it is 67

   The law defines "Senior" as a person aged sixty-seven (67) or older. It is this law’s own figure and worth not confusing: the Older Adults Bill of Rights and the Elderly Establishments Act use sixty (60), and the priority queue law uses its own criterion. If the person is 65, this particular law does not apply to them even though others do. The same definition says how they may appear: personally, through a guardian, or through a representative under a durable power of attorney granted by public deed.

2. 2

   Step 2: Check that your proceeding is not excluded

   The law applies to all administrative proceedings before all agencies not expressly excepted. It lists the exceptions: informal adjudication processes such as auctions; Treasury Department internal-revenue matters; debt issuances and capital investments; Environmental Quality Board environmental document review; and those proceedings that, by their nature and to avoid denial of Government funds or services, agencies have regulated at their discretion to conform their administrative procedures to those required by applicable federal law, including the federal Administrative Procedure Act, as Section 1.4 of Act 38-2017 provides. Worth checking that list before counting days: if your case is an internal-revenue matter, this law’s terms are not yours.

3. 3

   Step 3: The thirty days to start, and what must happen inside them

   This term has a condition and it must be read: when a complainant’s claim concerns the health, safety and/or wellbeing of a senior, the agency is obliged to begin the process within thirty (30) days of the date the complaint or claim was filed. And the law says what counts as "beginning", so nobody interprets it to taste: the designation of the hearing officer, the notification of the parties and the initial orders — such as scheduling mediation, a pre-hearing conference, a first hearing or others, as applicable — must be done within that term. If at thirty days there is no hearing officer designated and no notification, that is what is being breached, and that is what to name in writing.

4. 4

   Step 4: The ninety days are strict and run from filing

   The law’s sentence is short and admits no elastic reading: every case submitted to an adjudicative proceeding before an agency under this law must be resolved within a strict term of ninety (90) days, from the complaint’s filing. Note two things. First, the word "strict", which the law chose and which does not appear next to the other deadlines. Second, the starting point: the complaint’s filing, not the hearing date or the date the agency decided to attend to you. Unlike the thirty-day term, this one is not conditioned on the claim being about health, safety or wellbeing: it applies to every case under this law.

5. 5

   Step 5: Forty-five days for the written resolution

   When one of the parties is a senior, the agency’s final order or resolution must be issued in writing within forty-five (45) days after the hearing closes or after findings of fact and conclusions of law are issued. The law opens a single door to move that term: unless it is waived or extended with the written consent of all parties. That is, it is not enough for the agency to say it needs more time; the written consent of all parties is needed, and you are one of them. The resolution must also meet the other requirements of Section 3.14 of Act 38-2017, the general administrative procedure law, which we do not describe here because we did not read it for this guide.

6. 6

   Step 6: Reconsideration: 20, 15 and 45

   The party adversely affected by a partial or final resolution or order in which one of the parties is a senior may, within twenty (20) days from the date the notice is filed in the record, file a motion for reconsideration with the agency. The agency, within fifteen (15) days of filing, must consider it. If it rejects it outright or fails to act within those fifteen days, the term to seek review starts running again from notice of the denial or from expiry of the fifteen days, as applicable. If the agency accepts the motion, the resolution definitively deciding it must be issued and filed in the record within forty-five (45) days of the motion’s filing; and here is the detail most worth knowing: if the agency accepts the motion but fails to act within those forty-five days, it loses jurisdiction over it and the term to seek judicial review starts counting from the expiry of that term. A computation rule that avoids losing an appeal: if the date the notice is filed in the record differs from the date it was deposited in the mail, the term is computed from the mailing date.

7. 7

   Step 7: How this is used in practice

   There is no application to file to "activate" this law: it applies by its own text to the proceeding you already have. What you do need is to put two things on the record from the start. One, the person’s age, so the file shows a party aged sixty-seven or older and that these terms therefore run. Two, the filing date, the point from which nearly everything is counted. With that, when a deadline passes, the letter to the agency writes itself: cite Section 7 for the thirty and ninety days, Section 8 for the forty-five, and Section 9 for reconsideration. The law also imposed on every agency the duty to conform its rules or regulations to these provisions, and repeated that mandate for proceedings not expressly covered: both thirty-day regulatory deadlines ran from the law’s 2019 approval, so what is enforceable today is the result, not the deadline.

At the same agency where your case already sits: this law does not move the proceeding to another forum, it puts deadlines on the one you have. The Office of the Elderly Advocate is the government agency charged with receiving and investigating complaints about acts or omissions violating older adults’ rights, and that is the natural door if the agency defaults and does not respond. What we do not publish: Act 147-2019 creates no complaint procedure for breach of its own terms, names no enforcement office, and sets no sanctions for an agency that misses the deadlines. We say what the law says and do not add a consequence it did not write.

• Invoking this law at 60 or 65: its own definition is sixty-seven (67).
• Counting the ninety days from the hearing rather than from the complaint’s filing.
• Demanding the thirty-day start in a case that concerns neither health, safety nor wellbeing.
• Accepting the agency extending the forty-five days on its own: written consent of all parties is required.
• Letting the twenty reconsideration days pass while waiting for the agency to call.
• Not knowing the agency loses jurisdiction if it accepts reconsideration and lets forty-five days pass.
• Counting the term from the filing in the record when the mailing was on another date: it counts from the mailing.
• Counting days in an excluded proceeding, such as Treasury internal-revenue matters.

These are the government pages this guide is based on.

• Oficina del Procurador de las Personas de Edad Avanzada (OPPEA)

  OPPEA

  bvirtualogp.pr.gov

• Office of the Elderly Advocate

  OPPEA

  www.oppea.pr.gov