ATLANTA – The Southern Poverty Law Center and an Atlanta-based law firm filed a class-action lawsuit Tuesday against the Georgia Department of Labor over unprocessed and unpaid unemployment claims.
The suit, filed in Fulton County, charges extreme delays in the handling of claims throughout the coronavirus pandemic in violation of state and federal law.
Four plaintiffs represented by the Montgomery, Ala.-based center and Bondurant, Mixon & Elmore LLP are seeking relief for delays suffered by unemployed Georgians in initial determinations of eligibility for benefits, in payments of benefits and in appeals of adverse decisions.
“The pandemic created the largest unemployment crisis in generations, and throughout this trying time [the labor department] has refused to follow the law in providing help to people who desperately need it,” said Emily Early, senior supervising staff attorney for the center’s Economic Justice Project.
“State and federal law guarantee promptness and due process rights and [the department] has ignored those rights. … This catastrophe cannot continue.”
State lawmakers besieged by complaints from unemployed constituents also have criticized the department’s handling of unemployment claims since COVID-19 took hold in Georgia in March of last year.
The General Assembly responded by passing legislation this year creating the position of chief labor officer to work with Commissioner of Labor Mark Butler in expediting the handling of unemployment claims.
However, Gov. Brian Kemp vetoed the bill, arguing the new position would have conflicted with the constitutional authority of Georgia’s elected labor commissioner without providing any legal mechanism to resolve disputes between the two.
In opposing the chief labor officer bill before a legislative committee, Butler pointed to the unprecedented nature of the pandemic, which saddled his agency with more unemployed claims in months than it had been called on to handle during the previous decade.
He said he has sought more funding for the department for years to no avail.
On Tuesday, Butler said the lawsuit is politically motivated and without merit.
“These groups believe that unemployment insurance should be paid to everyone who applies, regardless of their qualifications,” he said. “The same groups should be more concerned with helping people go back to work in one of the hundreds of thousands of jobs currently available across the state of Georgia.”
The lawsuit seeks an injunction forcing the labor department to comply with state law and to enforce the plaintiffs’ federal due process rights. It also asks for monetary damages.