Bob Mercer reviews 35 cases in which Pandemic Unemployment Assistance recipients appealed the Department of Labor and Regulation’s decision to take back payments the state had already approved, plus two appeals in which applicants were denied PUA benefits. Mercer finds that the state won only 18 of those 37 cases and spent nearly $110K on private lawyers to win back $146K, a net savings for the state of $36K, or 8% of the $440K at stake in these cases. The state could have added over $15K to its clawback column, but it waived that repayment from one Aberdeen florist.
That savings of $36K does not take into account the in-house staff time DLR expended on those appeals. That staff time comes at a premium, as Mercer found out when they surprised him with a bill for triple what they originally told him the public records he requested would cost:
State law allows agencies to charge for retrieval of public records when more than one hour of staff time is required.
The department responded to KELOLAND News’ request for the outside-counsel costs with an estimate of the amount for the search.
“The amount spent by the Department for each case is information that would need to be compiled by staff through a manual review of invoices. It is estimated that this would cost $108 (three hours of staff time at $36/hour). If you agree to pay the cost of production for that list, please respond accordingly,” the department said.
When the search was completed, however, the department charged KELOLAND News $348.51. That was three times the estimate.
The itemized bill listed “8 hours at $36/hr = $288 +1 hour at $60.51/hr = $60.51.”
Asked why, Gerald McCabe from the department responded, “We try to provide the best estimate of the cost of production whenever possible. However, in this case, the complexity of compiling this list of costs was not fully clear until the staff member started and did the work. Additionally, that staff member also required the assistance and expertise of another staff member to correctly compile the list of costs” [Bob Mercer, “DLR Used Private Lawyers in Many Pandemic UI Appeals,” KELO-TV, 2025.11.21].
Two lessons here:
- Whether you’re collecting unemployment or requesting public records, don’t expect DLR to do its math right.
- If DLR does come knocking on your door demanding money, lawyer up: in the PUA appeals, DLR beat all 12 recipients who represented themselves. In the 25 cases where defendants hired lawyers, DLR won only 6, a 24% win rate.