Plaintiffs Object to Judge’s Report & Recommendations in Creager v. USA

National – On June 22, 2022, Plaintiffs filed their Objections to the Magistrate Judge’s Report and Recommendations in Creager v. USA. The lawsuit, filed in November 2021, seeks to hold the U.S. Government responsible for paying Pandemic Unemployment Assistance benefits to individuals who reside in states that cancelled the program early.  

The U.S. government argues, and the Judge’s report agrees, that the CARES Act didn’t allow them to pay out PUA funds directly to individuals who resided in states that stopped participating in the program. But Plaintiffs argue that the language of the law, in which Congress directed that the U.S. Secretary of Labor “shall” provide the PUA benefits and “may” do so through agreements with the states, clearly requires the federal government to pay out the benefits to covered individuals even where states did not agree to cooperate.  

Plaintiffs object to the Report & Recommendations from the Magistrate Judge and explain why in their filing, stating reasons including that the report ignored critical elements of statutory language and structure and it erroneously relied on the regulations of DUA, Disaster Unemployment Assistance, which Plaintiffs lay out is different than the PUA program brought about in the CARES Act. 

With these objections, Plaintiffs urge the court to grant relief & provide PUA benefits to all eligible individuals, regardless of state participation. 

Read Plaintiffs’ Objections in full here.

###