WASHINGTON — People left waiting for months on their unemployment claims during the coronavirus pandemic in Alabama can sue the state, the U.S. Supreme Court said Friday.
The 5-4 ruling comes after the Alabama Supreme Court rejected a lawsuit from 21 people, some of whom waited for months for a decision on whether they qualified for benefits, while others never got a decision or saw benefits suddenly stop without explanation, according to court documents. One man’s claim was dismissed after he missed an administrative deadline because he was on a ventilator, the lawsuit said.
The case was dismissed by the state’s highest court, which found the plaintiffs must go through an unemployment agency appeals process before they can sue.
The group appealed, arguing that the appeals process was hopelessly stalled at the time, and the U.S. Supreme Court has long held that lawsuits can be filed before a bureaucratic process is done.
The plaintiffs got support from groups across the ideological spectrum, including the American Civil Liberties Union and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Requiring people to finish an appeals process before suing would undermine other lawsuits ranging from civil rights claims to businesses’ challenges to state regulations, they wrote.
Alabama, which had one of the nation’s highest per-capita death rates during the COVID-19 pandemic, said that a skyrocketing number of unemployment claims overwhelmed the understaffed agency during the pandemic but that many of the plaintiffs’ claims have since been resolved.