FLORIDA -- A Tallahassee judge is set to hear arguments next week involving a lawsuit aimed at pressuring the State of Florida to speed up the distribution of unemployment benefits.

  • Emergency hearing set for Florida unemployment lawsuit
  • Suit aimed to speed up distribution of unemployment benefits
  • Hearing to start May 6 in Leon County

Judge Angela Dempsey set the hearing for Wednesday afternoon, May 6, in Leon County.

An initial emergency hearing planned for this week has been pushed back to give the State time to file a motion to dismiss with the court, which is due Monday.

For weeks Spectrum News has been pressing state leaders about the widespread complaints, glitches, and issues involving the CONNECT unemployment benefit system.

Tallahassee attorneys Marie Mattox, Gautier Kitchen, and Julie Keefe filed the suit last week after being contacted by 3,000 to 4,000 people frustrated with Florida’s unemployment system.

“They are denying more claims than they are granting,” Mattox said.

The suits name Florida Department of Economic Opportunity, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, and Deloitte Consulting as defendants.

“Because of the emergency nature of this case, at this point, and the number of people who have gone without unemployment benefits for so long, I would ask the Court to deem everyone who has applied ‘eligible’ at this point because of the delay,” Mattox said. “Open this up now, require they pay every single person who has submitted an application for unemployment benefits and then let’s start over.”

Florida Department of Economic Opportunity touts it has so far processed more than 674,005 claims of the more than 2 million total claims filed; most are duplicates. Approximately 835,290 individuals uniquely have applied.

DEO and Governor Ron DeSantis have long said they are working as quickly as they can, working within a broken and overwhelmed system. Both have repeatedly pointed to efforts to address concerns by expanding call center operations and using temporary assistance from other state agencies.

Those efforts, however, have so far failed to dramatically increase the pace.

Many have told Spectrum News they have now gone more than a month without any change to their application, much less benefits actually received. Little information, confusing answers, and other issues have further compounded the stresses and frustrations for filers.

“The system was never supposed to work,” said Gautier Kitchen.

In criticizing the state’s response, the lawsuit also surged former governor Senator Rick Scott designed the unemployment system to fail, while Governor Ron DeSantis ignored blatant warnings.

“It is intentionally confusing, redundant for no reason simply to deter people with the process,” Kitchen said.

The current system was implemented under the Scott administration prior to 2014 at a cost of more than $66 million. A 2019 Auditor General report outlined hundreds of issues with the CONNECT system, that long ago predicted the very problems that now exist.

When asked recently about the filing of the lawsuit, Governor DeSantis pointed the blame at Senator Scott, saying it was a system he inherited.

“This was foreseeable, it was only a matter of time,” Kitchen said. “This was a ticking time bomb and a Trojan horse.”

NOTE: Attorneys Marie Mattox and Gautier Kitchen say individuals adversely impacted by the unemployment system issues may contact them for more information about joining the class action lawsuit by emailing FrontDesk@MattoxLaw.com and Gautier@Kitchen-Law.com.