Here at the Law Office of Vincent Miletti, Esq. and the home of the #UnusuallyMotivated movement, we take pride as a resilient and dependable legal services firm, providing such services in both a traditional and online, web-based environment. With mastered specialization in areas such as Employment and Labor Law, Intellectual Property (I.P.) (trademark, copyright, patent), Entertainment Law, and e-Commerce (Supply Chain, Distribution, Fulfillment, Standard Legal & Regulatory), we provide a range of legal services including, but not limited to traditional legal representation (litigation, mediation, arbitration, opinion letters, and advisory), non-litigated business legal representation and legal counsel, and unique, online legal services such as smart forms, mobile training, and legal marketing and development.

Still, here at Miletti Law®,we feel obligated to enlighten, educate, and create awareness, free of charge, about how these issues and many others affect our unusually motivated® readers and/or their businesses. Accordingly, to achieve this goal, we have committed ourselves to creating authoritative, trustworthy, & distinctive content. Usually, this content is featured as videos posted on our YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtvUryqkkMAJLwrLu2BBt6w and blogs that are published on our website WWW.MILETTILAW.COM. With that, the ball is in your court and you have an effortless obligation to subscribe to the channel and sign up for the Newsletter on the website, which encompasses the best way to ensure that you stay in the loop and feel the positive impact of the knowledge bombs that we drop here!

As the authoritative force in Employment Law, we are thrilled to continue creating content-filled videos that cover diverse areas of Labor Law to educate and deliver in a sense that only Miletti Law® can. In this regard, this blog introduces you to yet another training video titled “Opposing a Ruling That You Fraudulently Applied For Benefits.” As the title suggests, we aim to arm you with key information on how to oppose a ruling that you fraudulently applied for pandemic and/or unemployment benefits.

By way of backdrop, let us give you a heads-up of something that was happening in New York a while ago and that affected the City dwellers. For starters, here at the law firm, we are not big fans of the City and its cacophony of bigwigs posing as leaders of the people. Those of you who share our sentiments regarding this murk of governance are aware that the City was basically handing out, during the COVID-19 pandemic and unemployment benefits like hotcakes and not thinking about where they would get money to pay back. Anyone willing to see knows the king kongs thought that as long as the City was in a perpetual state of emergency, they would not have to worry about paying the money back because the federal government was giving them and had all the money in the world.

With that in mind, our unusually motivated® readers and viewers of our blogs and videos can now agree with us that the most likely thing the federal and state governments would give you whenever they can is the middle finger, in every sense of the gesture. After all, they are kings and can do whatever it is that they want, no questions asked and repercussions whatsoever.

Before we dive right into the subject matter, let us take a step back and get to the bottom of this. During the pandemic, they made all attempts, without flinching, to keep everyone at home so that people could stop spreading the virus, oblivious to the harm they were causing to the economy and people’s lives. Does this remind you about the unbearable days of emperor Cuomo, the ousted Dr. Slippyfist who could not keep his thick fingers off female employees? While we are sure it does, then came Hochul, who carried on the mantle of Cuomo’s reign of terror. Literally, people were getting epidemic benefits endlessly, week after the other, since no one was allowed to go back to work. In a way, New York did that with an understanding that they were going to get money back from the federal government to cater for the high budget.

However, when the State Public Health Emergency ended amidst political ramifications and pressure to oust Cuomo, it dawned on the City that it was time to collect back the money it had spent. To do this, the City began claiming that because they did not meet this or that qualification, some people had applied fraudulently and dishonestly for the epidemic and unemployment benefits fraudulently and dishonestly and, thus, would need the money back. It tried to recoup the money they had used to pay unemployment benefits and the funds they had fronted for PUA (Pandemic Unemployment Assistance), which the federal government expected to be repaid.

While the PAU will be dealt with in an upcoming video, let us hammer on unemployment benefits for now. To this end, we have suggested and explained certain scenarios that we hope applies and suit you and your situation. Well, we recommend that you seek our legal services, but nonetheless, the aim is, as a way of giving back to the community, to arm you with key information on how to oppose a ruling that you fraudulently applied for during the pandemic and/or unemployment benefits.

Let us assume that a person had been working for a healthcare organization (as a medical professional), but following the State Public Health Emergency, they were required to stay at home unemployed. As a result, they applied for unemployment benefits while certifying one or every two weeks. Note that some people were being hired off the books but sometimes on the books. As a doctor, this individual probably got hired somewhere else as a janitor or waiter/waitress at a restaurant for some weeks, certified everything to get the benefits, but definitely, based on their profession, this was not the suitable employment for them and, thus, they left the job. Unfortunately, after the end of the emergency, the City wanted its money back. Alleging that the individual was employed and, therefore, obtained unemployment benefits fraudulently, the City gets to you, as the recent employer, and claims that the job they had hired the person for was a sufficient position not to require unemployment benefits and, therefore, the money to pay back the federal government would come from your rating account. However, having to pay this money would inflate your employment taxes come next year, and you definitely, do not want to pay a higher rating.

Mind you, this is super liberal leftist pinko democrat and communist New York and anytime your employer taxes go up, they will never ever come down. Never! Frankly, republicans in New York are communists and everyone here is a pinko communist; they are socials, they love your money, and they love taking everything and shutting down your business. Okay, enough with pinkos and communists; let us get back to the scenario! As the employer, you push back and let them know that you do not want to pay. As a result, the City files a report with the unemployment agency saying that the individual had a legitimate job, was being paid this, and was getting these benefits. The most typical question the unemployment agency would ask regards how the person certified for benefits when they were eligible to work and had a job but fraudulently misrepresented to it that the person was unemployed and, thus, entitled to unemployment benefits.

The bottom line is that most people were typically certifying without understanding the legal implications of their actions. The next thing you know, you are being served with a letter full of nonsensical claims, such as that you were fully fraudulent, you were willfully misrepresenting your “unemployed” situation, you were intentionally trying to defraud the government and whatnot.

Assuming you are the person captured in the scenario discussed above, how do you respond to this? First and foremost, you obviously need to determine and document what you were doing during the weeks being cited in the letter, whether you got paid during that time, and whether you had a job. After that, you need to come up with a solid reason why you continued to certify for unemployment benefits even though you were technically not entitled to get them. The fact is that after the City was locked down and businesses shut down, people were accepting jobs that were not even close to their professional experience, training, skills, and licenses. Therefore, you would have solid ground to make your case. Essentially, you could respond by saying that employment, as defined under the statute, constitutes work that is (1) suitable and (2) reasonably fits and matches my education, training, experience, skills, license, and expertise. Thus, assuming you are an individual such as the “doctor” we used in the scenario, or a lawyer, or engineer, among other professions, but took a job as a janitor or fry cook (no offense to these people), then that job (1) was not suitable for you and (2) did not reasonably match your education, training, experience, skills, license, and expertise.

In order for them to determine that you fraudulently certified for benefits and willfully misrepresented your situation, they would need to show that you actually intended to do it. You will most likely hear them using the term “scienter,” a legal term to show that you knew and intentionally engaged in the wrongdoing. Never mind, these are just fancy-pants words to show that you had the mindset and intended to defraud the government. Legally, they would have to collect and gather a ton of evidence to show that, indeed, you intended to defraud the government, fraudulently certified for benefits, and willfully misrepresented your situation. Unfortunately, this would be almost impossible for them to do.

So, in order to oppose a ruling that you fraudulently applied for unemployment benefits, you need to state and document that the cited job (1) was not suitable for you, (2) was woefully inadequate, and (3) did not reasonably match and definitely was not commensurate to your education, training, experience, skills, license, and expertise and, thus, you will not and should not be asked to pay back a dime.

Whatever the case, this should be your response, and if you need assistance, we would gladly retain you and represent you in such legal proceedings. Accordingly, please, feel free to view our video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9aoJqlf0v4. As we continue hammering on new stuff daily, stay tuned for more educative videos, inspiring training, & legal advice. In the interim, if there are any questions or comments, please let us know at the Contact Us page!

Always rising above the bar,

Isaac T.,

Legal Writer & Author.