RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — After being threatened with a lawsuit, Virginia has begun paying unemployment benefits to tens of thousands of people whose claims had previously been on hold — in some cases for many months — because they were awaiting a staff review.

State officials decided to go ahead and pay certain applicants while their claims make their way through the determination process. Payments started going out Tuesday night, according to a spokeswoman for the Virginia Employment Commission.

The move will certainly be a relief for many Virginians who had been waiting for help. But if the determination process finds the recipients were not due the money, they will have to pay it back, possibly along with interest and fees.

“We’re doing this to try to resolve issues faster, and try to get people money faster. And … I just hope most of them qualify,” said Joyce Fogg, the commission spokeswoman.

Fogg said the commission broke the backlog down into groups based on the type of issue the claim was flagged for.

The largest group was people whose claim had an issue related to the way they left their job. For instance, they may have been reported as having quit, which would only make them eligible for unemployment under certain circumstances.

The work of making that determination would fall to a deputy. The department currently has only 71 trying to make their way through approximately 70,000 claims with an issue, according to Fogg.

On Nov. 6, the Legal Aid Justice Center, Legal Aid Works, Virginia Poverty Law Center and other pro bono partners sent a letter to the commission asking that they fix problems with the unemployment insurance program or face a class action lawsuit.

“We are very pleased that VEC is taking these proactive steps. These benefits are a lifeline for Virginians who are unable to work due to the pandemic,” Pat Levy-Lavelle, an attorney with the the Legal Aid Justice Center who has been helping clients with unemployment issues, wrote in an email.

In October, The Virginia Mercury first reported that the state ranked worst in the nation for quickly processing claims that require a staff review.

About 45,000 of the 70,000 claims have been paid so far, Fogg said. Work is expected to continue quickly on the remainder.

Fogg said the commission does not have an estimate for how many of the people currently being paid out are actually due the compensation.

“We won’t know until they go through adjudication,” she said.

The commission will not be paying out any claims that are awaiting a determination after being flagged for fraud, said Megan Healy, who serves in Gov. Ralph Northam’s cabinet as his chief workforce advisor. She said there are about 40,000 such claims, although Fogg said the commission did not have an exact figure.

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