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A Manhattan judge has given preliminary approval to a settlement in a long-running class action lawsuit filed on behalf of about 250,000 New York City residents who receive public assistance or food stamps, and whose benefits were reduced because of violations of workfare requirements.

The Legal Aid Society teamed up with special counsel from Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel to represent the class, of which tens of thousands may receive between $4 million and $8 million, but the figure is still an estimate, said Lester Helfman of the Legal Aid Society, the lead attorney on the case.

Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Lucy Billings also scheduled a fairness hearing in March for the settlement, which is the last step before it can be finalized.

The class includes public assistance recipients who received sanctions for violating workfare requirements, such as by allegedly missing work activities or appointments, between 2007 and 2015. 

Workfare, or the Work Experience Program, began in the mid-1990s under then-Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, and required people who received public assistance to perform menial labor to receive benefits.

In a suit filed in 2010, the plaintiffs alleged that the city's Human Resources Administration issued notices to public-assistance recipients that did not contain information that was required by state statute and by the due process clause, which ultimately resulted in sanctions for some plaintiffs whose infractions were not willful.

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