Location: CA I had a court hearing with the State of California, Department of Social Services (CDSS) for a Medi-Cal appeal. This hearing was led by a Los Angeles County Administrative Law Judge and was done over a recorded WebEx meeting 10 days ago. Today, I received an update from CDSS. A letter from an Administrative Law Judge states that I did not appear for my hearing and my appeal is dismissed. I can ask to reopen the appeal but "To do this, you must give a good reason for not attending the hearing." It is so frustrating that the county claims I wasn't there when there is video record of my hearing. Luckily, I wanted a personal copy of the video hearing so I audio recorded the majority of it on my phone. Was that legal? I opened this appeal 2 months ago. The judge essentially ruled in my favor during my hearing. I am going to call the State Hearings Division first thing Monday morning, but when they ask for my "reason for not attending the hearing" should I mention that I have audio proof of my appearance or should I simply say that *I was present* and *they* need to retrieve the video recording of our WebEx meeting? I do not want to self-incriminate but I also refuse to allow myself to be gaslit. Edit: I did not inform the other parties (Judge and CDSS Rep) that I was audio recording. Edit 2: I understand that I should not have recorded the conversation since I did not ask for nor receive consent from the other parties. **I will request that they review their copy of the hearing since we were on a recorded WebEx meeting. Thank you for your help.**