IBM owes the US state of Indiana $US78 million ($A99 million) in damages stemming from the company's failed effort to automate much of the state's welfare services, a judge has ruled. Marion Superior Court Judge Heather Welch issued the ruling dated Friday nearly six months after she heard arguments from attorneys for the state and IBM Corp. The Indiana Supreme Court ruled last year that IBM had breached its contract and it directed the trial court to calculate the damages. New York-based IBM said on Monday it will appeal the decision. Indiana and IBM sued each other in 2010 after then-governor Mitch Daniels
cancelled the company's $US1.3 billion contract to privatise and automate the processing of Indiana's welfare applications. Under the deal, an IBM-led team of vendors worked to process applications for food stamps, Medicaid and other benefits. Residents could apply for the benefits through call centres, the internet and fax machines. The contact was pulled in late 2009, less than three years into the 10-year deal, following complaints about long wait times, lost documents and improper rejections. The state sought more than $US172 million from IBM, but the judge ruled IBM responsible for $US128 million in damages. That amount was offset by about $50 million in state fees that the company was owed. IBM said in an email that it believes the judge's ruling 'is contradicted by the facts and the law'. 'IBM worked diligently and invested significant resources in its partnership with (the state) to help turn around a welfare system described at the time by Indiana's governor as one of the worst in the nation,' the company said. A different judge ruled in IBM's favour in 2012 and awarded the company $12 million, mostly for equipment the state kept. An appeals court reversed that decision, finding that IBM had committed a material breach of its contract by failing to deliver improvements to Indiana's welfare system. The state argued that IBM owed Indiana for the cost of fixing the company's problematic automation efforts to make the system workable, paying overtime for state staffers to review and correct those problems, and hiring new staff to help oversee that process, among other expenses.