Supreme Court says unemployed Alabamians can sue state over delaying benefits

The Supreme Court sided with a group of unemployed residents in Alabama looking to sue the state over delaying their claims.

The dispute involved 21 Alabamians who said the state was delaying their applications for unemployment benefits. The state courts ruled against the residents, reasoning they had to exhaust their efforts administratively before bringing a case in state court.

They sued, saying their due process rights were being violated. 

The justices in a 5-4 ruling Friday said that requiring the residents to keep their claims delayed and unable to be addressed in state court would leave the group in a catch-22 since the state was not processing the claims.

Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, writing for the majority, said the high court agreed with the residents.

“In light of this Court’s precedents, we agree with the claimants. In the unusual circumstances presented here — where a state court’s application of a state exhaustion requirement in effect immunizes state officials from … claims challenging delays in the administrative process—state courts may not deny those … claims on failure to exhaust grounds,” he wrote.

He was joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

The justices also issued a unanimous ruling Friday against Hungarian Holocaust survivors who wanted to sue their government in U.S. courts for seizing some of their property during World War II. 

The justices rejected their argument that there was an exception under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976 that would allow them to sue the Hungarian government in the U.S.

Lastly, the high court in a unanimous ruling let a case proceed against Wisconsin Bell under the False Claims Act in a dispute involving the government subsidizing the internet for schools and libraries.