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.