GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WXMI) — After eight years, a class-action lawsuit against Michigan's unemployment agency is coming to a close after a $20 million settlement was approved by a judge.
Judge Doug Shapiro put the final stamp of approval on the multimillion-dollar settlement Monday afternoon.
The Problem Solvers at Fox 17, WXYZ's Grand Rapids sister station, previously investigated claims of people being erroneously accused of unemployment fraud by a computer system that lacked human intervention.
The attorneys representing the members of the class-action received 9,989 submissions through a website they set up to find anyone eligible for the suit.
Courts determined that between Oct. 1, 2013, and March 9, 2015, several thousand people were flagged for potential fraud, or "intentional misrepresentation of facts," by the agency's automated system called MIDAS.
Those people then had wages garnished or tax returns seized.
A total of 3,206 people ended up qualifying for the suit.
Of all the qualifying class members, attorneys calculated $5,159,693 in financial losses.
They will all be reimbursed the full amount they previously had seized by the state.
In addition, all 3,206 people will receive an additional portion of available settlement money: $3 million will be evenly split amongst all claimants.
Some people will also receive "hardship" awards, or extra money, if they went through significant difficulties after being accused of fraud.
Attorney fees sit around $6.6 million.
“This is not the typical class action. ... These are going to be awards in the thousands of dollars," Jennifer Lord, an attorney for the class-action members, said in court Monday.
“This is an important and groundbreaking case that not only changed the landscape of civil rights law in the state of Michigan; it resulted in a settlement in which every single eligible class member will receive an award of more than 100% of what was seized from them.”
The settlement was not challenged by the state of Michigan.
