A federal judge denied the state’s motion to dismiss a lawsuit alleging that it systemically deprived eligible individuals of their federal benefits with a dysfunctional automated telephone system.
“The policies, practices, and procedures that Plaintiffs claim violate the ADA and § 1983 are still at issue,” wrote U.S. District Court Judge M. Douglas Harpool in his July 11 ruling. “The Court finds that Plaintiffs have alleged enough to survive Defendant’s motion to dismiss and Defendant’s motion to dismiss based on the argument that Plaintiffs’ claims are moot is denied.”
Empower Missouri is among the plaintiffs who sued Missouri's Department of Social Services (DSS ) alleging that the way it administers Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits violates the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
“Empower Missouri is a plaintiff in the suit because we run a statewide food security coalition that represents more than a hundred organizations across the state that provide food benefits or help individuals to access federal benefits such as SNAP,” said Mallory Rusch, executive director of Empower Missouri. “We've heard hundreds of complaints from these agencies and the individuals they represent about numerous difficulties accessing the system. That’s why we joined the effort on the lawsuit.”
The Plaintiffs allege that the Missouri DSS phone tree has excessively long wait times and fails to assist callers.
“Callers are often deflected from the system, which means the system just hangs up on them when they're overloaded and then people get bounced for not completing an interview when it's not for lack of trying,” Rusch told the St. Louis Record. “It's that the call center has not allowed them to get through to complete the process.”
The state argued that staffing shortages are at fault and SNAP deficiencies are not the fault of DSS.
“Defendant did not know that any of the alleged conduct violates the law; that any such conduct creates a substantial risk of harm or injury to Plaintiffs or that Plaintiffs have been harmed or injured; that Defendant did not fail to take sufficient adequate action to prevent such risk from occurring,” wrote assistant Attorney General Gerald M. Jackson in a July 25 brief filed on behalf of defendant Robert Knodell, DSS acting director.
However, Rusch said asserting staffing shortages is a poor excuse with an immediate remedy.
“If they paid people a reasonable wage, then they wouldn't have such severe staffing shortages,” she said. “One of the things Gov. Parson asked the legislature to do as part of the last session was to create a new minimum wage for state employees and to create a minimum wage increase across the board, which was partially completed but there were folks who were left out of that.”