At the outset, requesters should be aware that the Railroad Retirement Act (RRA) and the Railroad Unemployment Insurance Act (RUIA) are statutes that qualify under Exemption 3 of the Freedom of Information Act. This means the nondisclosure provisions contained in the RRA & RUIA apply to all FOIA requests.
Therefore, the Railroad Retirement Board (RRB) is generally restricted from disclosing information and records that pertain to an individual without a signed authorization from the employee or the legal representative of the employee’s estate, unless the disclosure is clearly in furtherance of the interest of the employee or the employee’s estate. Unfortunately, the statute does not have an exception for when there is no living employee or estate representative. See 12(d) of the RUIA (45 U.S.C. § 362(d)), which is incorporated into the RRA by section 7(b)(3) of that Act (45 U.S.C. § 231f(b)(3)).
The Records Themselves
The RRB administers a federal retirement benefit program covering the nation’s railroad workers. The maintained records deal primarily with the administration and payment of these benefits. The records are limited to individuals who worked in the rail industry after 1936. The records are only for persons whose employment was covered under the RRA and RUIA and whose rail service was more than on a casual basis and/or a short duration.
The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) has custody of many of the agency’s older records. Claim Files in NARA’s custody have been inactive (i.e. benefits are no longer being claimed based on that person’s railroad employment) for at least seven years. To request a search of records at NARA, please contact the National Archives at Boston at archives.boston@nara.gov. You may view more on their Railroad Retirement Board holdings on their website here: https://www.archives.gov/boston/railroad-retirement-records.
Exception to the Authorization Requirement
On a case-by-case basis, the agency may grant an exception when the requestor is unable to provide an authorization but has demonstrated that releasing the records clearly is in furtherance of the interest of the employee or the employee’s estate.
For example, the RRB may provide records if a legal claim is being filed on behalf of a deceased individual even though the estate is no longer open, such as asbestos claims or Downwinder claims under the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act. If the records are sought for the benefit of the requester, such as asking for records to seek citizenship in a foreign country, the RRB would not grant an exception.
In these instances, requestors may provide more details as to how this information does meet the exception and the agency will consider the new information.