Michigan residents whose unemployment claims were wrongfully rejected as fraudulent by a computer system can sue the system’s developers and state officials, a federal judge has ruled, the Associated Press reported. Five plaintiffs sued FAST Enterprises LLC, CSG Government Solutions and five state employees in 2017, alleging that the staffers’ actions and flaws with the automated computer system put them at financial risk and even bankruptcy. In an opinion issued on Thursday, U.S. District Judge David M. Lawson dismissed one plaintiff and three defendants but ruled that the case will move forward. State officials have acknowledged that at least 20,000 Michigan residents — and possibly as many as 40,000 — were wrongly accused of fraud between 2013 and 2015 by a $47 million computer system, purchased from FAST Enterprises, that the state operated without human supervision and with an error rate as high as 93%. The system allegedly made an excessive percentage of fraud determinations between 2013 and 2015 during then-Gov. Rick Snyder’s administration, even after the errors were pointed out by staffers, Judge Lawson’s opinion states.
