Old records expungement

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grownupsincethen

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I THINK I know the answer to this, and it's not really a medical question, but:

My aircraft insurance application asks "Has any pilot named above had... FAR violation or suspension or revocations of pilot’s license?"

30+ years ago (not certain of the dates but definitely prior to 1988) when I was young and foolish I had a couple of run-ins with the FAA, one for doing aerobatics where I shouldn't (within 4nm of the centerline of a federal airway) and expired medical, for which I paid a $500 civil penalty, and one for minimum altitude (NOT guilty but the witness lied but that's another story), for which I accepted a 6 month suspension since I wasn't going to be flying for awhile anyway for other reasons.

As I understand it, prior to 2010 everything was expunged after 5 years, though nowadays most things aren't expunged. But since it happened so long ago, it should be gone and I have nothing to gain by answering "yes" and opening a can of worms with the insurance company... I think?
 
Not advice, but if it's one of those open-ended "ever" questions, I would answer it truthfully and not base my answer on what record can they uncover. Many applications limit some of the questions to what the underwriters consider to be a relevant reporting period, like the past 5 years, but, while I don't have a violation, I do have a 20+ year old insurance claim from a prop strike. Reporting it has meant absolutely nothing to the underwriters. It was, as you say "so long ago," they really don't care, especially in light of my history since.

As I explain to my "real" (criminal record) expunction clients, expunction in my state means no available official record for most purposes. It does not mean it never happened and it does not mean nobody knows about it. I'd rather disclose something meaningless than give an insurer an excuse to deny a claim because they find out during post-accident investigation. But that's my situation. Yours may be different. But overall, I think it's a good idea to at least consult with someone who knows the system before deciding to perhaps create a later problem by failing to disclose something inconsequential.
 
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Is says "Has any pilot named above had" not "Is there anything on record indicating any pilot named above having"
 
When I applied for LTC insurance the interviewer asking about my health history said they didn’t care about anything more than 20 years ago. That was specific. So if your insurance company isn’t saying “within the past x number of years” I’d say they mean ever. And if you don’t disclose they very well might use it to deny a claim.

Disclaimer: I’m not an insurance lawyer nor an insurance salesman nor claims adjuster so what do I know.
 
Another pilot who has fungible truth.
Man I avoid such like the plague.

it would take about three minutes to find this record of suspension......
Hope and self delusion abound....
 
So you have an accident and a clerk at the FAA failed to expunge your record, you will have a denied claim if the insurance company does a records search.
 
Clip4 said:
So you have an accident and a clerk at the FAA failed to expunge your record, you will have a denied claim if the insurance company does a records search.
Click to expand...

So can all records kept by the FAA be requested under FOIA?
 
midlifeflyer said:
It does not mean it never happened and it does not mean nobody knows about it.
Click to expand...
I wasn't going to but...

I recently had occasion to look at the old Senator James Inhofe closed runway in October 2010. You remember how that turned out? Instead of formal enforcement action, the FAA opted for an administrative action requiring remedial training which Inhofe agreed to in December. It included four hours ground and three hours flight training. He completed it all in less than a month and the FAA wrote to him January 4, 2011, stating the matter was considered closed. Under FAA rules, the record was expunged in January 2012.

Which, of course, made it impossible for me to find out anything at all about it :D

(BTW, that was not a hit on the FAA. Those records are available elsewhere even though a request to the FAA today should get a "no records" response with respect to that event.)

If you are faced with the issue, get reliable information specific to your situation but, as far as I can tell, generally speaking, the the FAA's form of internal expunction appears to be limited to record retention, destruction, and de-identification of pilot enforcement records. IOW, if someone asks the FAA for record information on a pilot, say through PRIA or another record request, there is nothing official to report. I haven't looked that deeply, but I have not seen anything similar to state laws which, for example, explicitly authorize a "no" answer to questions about whether one was convicted of a crime.

This excerpt from a letter which is still publicly available on the FAA web site might tell you al you need to know about expunction of FAA records. And yes, the letter mentions the client by name.

upload_2021-9-9_15-14-39.png
Some secrecy, eh?
 
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If you do a FOIA on yourself, and it comes back clean….

Truly, I m not a lawyer, but I thought the whole point of expungement was to get a fresh start. I thought you could truly answer “no”.
If that’s not the case, than what is the purpose of expungement??
 
Kritchlow said:
If you do a FOIA on yourself, and it comes back clean….

Truly, I m not a lawyer, but I thought the whole point of expungement was to get a fresh start. I thought you could truly answer “no”.
If that’s not the case, than what is the purpose of expungement??
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For a lot of the Fed stuff expungement means nothing. For example, if you ever apply for Global Entry the application tells you to include any criminal history even if it was expunged.
 
wsuffa said:
For a lot of the Fed stuff expungement means nothing. For example, if you ever apply for Global Entry the application tells you to include any criminal history even if it was expunged.
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I believe you. My point is, since that’s the case, there really is no such thing as expungement.
 
The federal law system is separate from that of the states. The don’t expunge a thing….
 
Doc Holliday said:
So can all records kept by the FAA be requested under FOIA?
Click to expand...

Doc Holiday
Linwood Cemetery
Glenwood Springs, Colorado

Sir,

In order to process your insurance claim, we are requesting you forward a copy of you FAA records to substantiate representations you made on your insurance application. When you want the money send us the records.
 
bbchien said:
The federal law system is separate from that of the states. The don’t expunge a thing….
Click to expand...
That’s just not correct pertaining to FAA records some years back.
Today that is true.
 
Clip4 said:
Doc Holiday
Linwood Cemetery
Glenwood Springs, Colorado

Sir,

In order to process your insurance claim, we are requesting you forward a copy of you FAA records to substantiate representations you made on your insurance application. When you want the money send us the records.
Click to expand...

So you can't answer the question, once again. :rolleyes:

So by your inane logic, if someone can't produce a document they have no access to then an insurance company will deny a claim.

Nice try. :rolleyes:o_O
 
Kritchlow said:
I believe you. My point is, since that’s the case, there really is no such thing as expungement.
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The entity doing the expungement is the one bound by the expungement. It's a legal procedure, it doesn't alter history. There are some situations where it affects third parties; others where it doesn't.

There was a public official here who was arrested for vote tampering, and later had the arrest expunged. She sued a local paper that reported on it, but the court tossed the suit. The expungement didn't change the fact that she'd been arrested, so it can't be slanderous to say so.

In the OP's situation I'd ask. The question is about the facts, not the legal import of them, but the company may, by policy, ignore expunged incidents.
 
Kritchlow said:
If you do a FOIA on yourself, and it comes back clean….

Truly, I m not a lawyer, but I thought the whole point of expungement was to get a fresh start. I thought you could truly answer “no”.
If that’s not the case, than what is the purpose of expungement??
Click to expand...
That is the purpose of most state criminal record expungement statutes. Some statutes specifically authorize a "no" answer to "have you been..." questions in housing and employment questionnaires (the more pedantic among us might call it a license to lie); some have penalties for asking the question improperly; some provide landlord and employer immunity for hiring even if they find out about the applicant's past. Those are all "fresh start statutes."

The FAA's own expungement policy does not say any of those things. I have not seen it tested and there is probably must disagreement within the legal community. A "no" may or may not be a "truthful" answer depending on how the question is worded. "Do you have a history of...?" may be a "no" while "Have you ever...?" might be a "yes." But before getting to that question which, AFAIK has no answer its often best to determine whether a "yes" has any real consequences.
 
Kritchlow said:
That’s just not correct pertaining to FAA records some years back.
Today that is true.
Click to expand...
Partly. There still is an FAA enforcement expungement policy. When created in 1991, it was no expungement of revocations, expungement of formal "violations" after 5 years, expungement of administrative actions (which are not considered violations) in 2 years, and expungement of "no action" cases in 90 days. In the wake of PRIA, the expungement of "violations" was suspended but the others are still in effect.
 
Doc Holliday said:
So you can't answer the question, once again. :rolleyes:

So by your inane logic, if someone can't produce a document they have no access to then an insurance company will deny a claim.

Nice try. :rolleyes:o_O
Click to expand...

Golden rule. We have the gold, we make the rules.
 
Yes but certain critical items to certification will not be in the file released to the airman....like the internal commentary by the FAA specialists as to your certification efforts. FOIA is different that dragging out evidentiary proceedings in a lawsuit.
 
midlifeflyer said:
Partly. There still is an FAA enforcement expungement policy. When created in 1991, it was no expungement of revocations, expungement of formal "violations" after 5 years, expungement of administrative actions (which are not considered violations) in 2 years, and expungement of "no action" cases in 90 days. In the wake of PRIA, the expungement of "violations" was suspended but the others are still in effect.
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Totally agree. I did not word it as precisely or eloquently as you, but that was my point. There was once a window where violations were expunged and untraceable (you may disagree, but I’m certain of that). No longer though. Indeed that has changed.
 
Kritchlow said:
Totally agree. I did not word it as precisely or eloquently as you, but that was my point. There was once a window where violations were expunged and untraceable (you may disagree, but I’m certain of that). No longer though. Indeed that has changed.
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I don't disagree at all. My only point is that records identified for expungement are untraceable within the official record-keeping system. But the system does not reach tentacles outside itself to obliterate copies of the record outside it. As is typical to many expunction systems, there are also exceptions indicating where identifiable records may continue to exist.

The Inhofe details I mentioned are from copies of the FAA documents I obtained this past week (not from the FAA of course).
The portion of the Chief Counsel I pasted letter mentioning the expunction of "your client's" record, also naming the client, is publicly available.
There's a US Court of Appeals case reversing an FAA decision and directing the FAA to expunge all records. Of course, the Court if Appeals case naming all parties and detailing the event is there for anyone to see.

The point is simply that expunction is not a panacea.
 
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