CLEVELAND — A lawsuit filed Tuesday wants the state to rescind its move to cut off unemployment benefits offered through CARES Act programs designed to help Ohioans who lost income because of the pandemic.
The suit, filed Tuesday, July 6, in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court, is leveled at Gov. Mike DeWine and Matt Damschroder, interim director of the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services.
In May, DeWine and Damschroder announced three federally funded unemployment benefits programs would be cut off on June 26. Under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, all three programs had been extended through Sept. 6, 2021.
Ohio is one of 25 states that cut the aid off early, with many blaming federal aid for keeping workers at home instead of on the job.
The suit’s plaintiffs, Shawnee Huff, Candy Bowling and David Willis, all of Lakewood, Ohio, say the state has a legal and statutory duty to accept the federal money and disperse it to those who have been eligible for it, said Marc Dann, an attorney with Cleveland-based DannLaw, which is partnering on the suit with Dayton-based Advocate Attorneys LLC.
Dann, a Democrat, was the attorney general of Ohio in 2007 and 2008.
If the court compels the state to accept and distribute the federal money, all Ohioans who were eligible for the supplemental benefits will resume receiving the aid, Dann said.
If the court does not compel the state to accept aid, attorneys plan to file an amendment and seek damages, Dann said.
In response to Spectrum News’ request for comment, DeWine’s spokesperson Dan Tierney said, “We have no comment on this pending litigation.”
In Ohio, the number of those unemployed peaked in April 2020 at 908,862 at the onset of the pandemic. As of May 2021, 277,777 Ohioans were unemployed, which represents 5% of the workforce.
The unemployment programs developed as part of the CARES Act include:
- Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation, which increased unemployment benefits by $600 per week from March 2020 through Dec. 2020, when it dropped the supplement to $300 per week;
- Pandemic Unemployment Assistance for workers, such as freelancers, who are not eligible for regular unemployment benefits but are out of work because of COVID-19; and
- Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation, which extended unemployment compensation for people who had exhausted their benefits when the pandemic hit.
The suit has the support of nearly 8,000 unemployed Ohioans who are members of the Facebook group “Unofficial Unemployment Ohio Information and Help.” The private group was created to help those trying to stay financially afloat.
A GoFundMe was also established to help pay for legal representation, with 141 donors raising nearly $3,300 of a $5,000 goal.
The supplemental benefits issue has roots in Depression-era legislation, Dann said.
“The unemployment statute in Ohio was passed during the Depression and one of the provisions of it, which remains in current law, requires the director or whoever’s in charge to get the maximum government benefits available from the federal government,” he said.
Workers in Indiana, Maryland and Texas have filed similar suits, according to a DannLaw press release.
In late June in Indiana Superior Court, a judge ruled that the state must pay the benefits and ordered officials to contact the U.S. Department of Labor to begin the process, according to NPR. The Baltimore Sun reported that a judge ruled that the state must pay enhanced unemployment benefits to unemployed workers. The state is appealing the ruling. Court action in Maryland and Texas is pending.
