Stimulus Payment Issued To Woman Who Died in '67

James Hagner opened his mailbox the other day and found a surprise.

It was a check from the federal government for $250. It was made out to his mother, Rose.

One small problem.

"My mother died on Memorial Day," Hagner said. "In 1967."

Oops.

"It was a glitch," said Mark Lassiter, a spokesman for the Social Security Administration.

He continued: In the rush to distribute payments, officials were not able to thoroughly review all Social Security records. Rose Hagner no longer received Social Security checks, but because the agency had no official record of her death, she fell into a bureaucratic limbo for people whose status is unclear, he said. The result? She ended up receiving one of the more than 50 million checks being sent to senior citizens this month as part of the $787 billion stimulus package approved in February.

James Hagner, a World War II veteran who retired several years ago from a job at National Plastics, said he plans to keep the check but has no intention of doing something silly like trying to cash it.

"I'm going to keep it for a keepsake so I can show I'm not lying," said Hagner, 82.

Initially, Hagner said he found the whole thing pretty amusing, but the more he thought about it, the more outraged he became.

"I want to know: How many more of these are out there?" he said, indignation in his voice. "They holler about the cost of government. . . . Well, how many more of these checks are out there?"

Although the Hagner case is the first he has heard of, Lassiter said there could be as many as 10,000 other people -- or their survivors -- in similar situations. However, he said, few will receive checks for relatives who died more than 40 years ago.

"This is something that we know would occur, but we expect to have few very isolated incidents like this," Lassiter said. "It's not indicative of any major flaw or problem."

Hagner, who lives in Orchard Beach in Anne Arundel County, said this is not the first time the government has erred in matters related to his mother, who raised five children.

In 1996, another piece of mail addressed to his mother landed in Hagner's mailbox. It was a card from the White House, congratulating Rose Hagner on her 100th birthday.