The Legal Aid Society and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer US LLP filed a federal class action lawsuit on behalf of individual plaintiffs and all New Yorkers who receive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), an essential form of federal food assistance for low-income people, and who have had their benefits stolen through skimming, a form of electronic theft, as reported by NBC News.

The lawsuit was filed against the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the USDA Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) and seeks to restore the stolen benefits of an estimated 8,800 SNAP recipients in New York. USDA FNS has refused to authorize New York State to use federal funds to replace the stolen benefits based on a regulation that the federal agency adopted in 2010 that does not give states authority to replace SNAP benefits in instances of skimming.

As a result, New York and other states have taken the position that replacement benefits cannot be issued. Without this much-needed federal assistance, SNAP recipients are left with no ability to feed their families until receipt of the following month’s benefits, and must frantically turn to food banks, relatives and neighbors to make up the shortfall.

“Our clients and all low-income New Yorkers who rely on SNAP benefits to feed themselves and their families are suffering tremendously and must be immediately reimbursed for their stolen benefits, which they lost through no fault of their own,” said Alex MacDougall, an attorney in the Civil Law Reform Unit at The Legal Aid Society.

“It is unacceptable that the USDA is essentially passing the buck and not taking responsibility for reimbursing victims of skimming, despite legal mandates that protect other forms of electronic theft and the agency’s responsibility to ensure that benefits systems are protected,” she continued.