Court Backs Immigrants’ Labor Rights

Illegal immigrants hurt on the job are entitled to workers’ compensation benefits, a state appeals court panel has ruled, upholding California’s policy of granting workplace rights to undocumented employees.

Torrance coffee roaster Farmer Bros. Co. had sought to deny workers’ comp benefits to an injured employee who was in the country illegally. The company argued that federal immigration laws superseded the state’s system for treating victims of workplace injuries.

But the 2nd District Court of Appeal in Los Angeles, in a ruling published late Monday, said federal immigration statutes didn’t preempt state laws governing workers’ comp insurance, minimum wage guarantees and occupational health and safety protections.

“California law has expressly declared immigration status irrelevant to the issue of liability to pay compensation to an injured worker,” the court ruled, upholding an earlier decision by the state Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board against Farmer Bros.

Experts said the unanimous ruling by the three-judge panel was the first time an appeals court in California had specifically upheld the right of illegal immigrants to receive medical care and disability benefits for on-the-job injuries.

A finding in favor of Farmer Bros. would have been “devastating” and “would have put hundreds of thousands of workers at real risk,” said Merle Rabine, a commissioner on the workers’ comp appeals board, which had previously ruled that illegal immigrants were entitled to benefits.

An estimated 2.6 million illegal immigrants live in California, according to the state Department of Finance.

Rabine said that the appeals court ruling, although a first for California, echoed decisions made in at least four other states that illegal immigrants were eligible for workplace protections.

Monday’s decision is “definitely affirming both the common sense application of California law and what every other court in the country has routinely found: that federal immigration law does not preempt state workers’ compensation laws,” said Kari Krogseng, a San Leandro attorney who filed a brief in the case on behalf of the California Applicants’ Attorneys Assn., which represents injured workers.

Farmer Bros. spokesman Jim Lucas declined to comment on the ruling. In court filings, however, the company argued that the employee, Rafael Ruiz, broke state insurance laws by using fraudulent identification papers to get hired and become eligible for workers’ comp benefits.

The court rejected the argument, noting that no state or federal law required Ruiz to be “a lawfully documented alien to be an employee entitled to workers’ compensation benefits.”

According to his lawyer’s case file, Ruiz, 35, injured his shoulders, back, neck and hands by repeatedly lifting heavy sacks of coffee beans.

Employers such as Farmer Bros. generally fight what they consider to be questionable workers’ comp claims in an effort to prevent potential fraud and keep insurers from increasing their annual premiums.

California law has been clear in providing workplace protections regardless of an employee’s immigration status, said Susan Gard, a spokeswoman for the state Division of Workers’ Compensation. Lifting the mandate to pay minimum wage or provide medical care for injuries could create an “incentive to hire illegal workers,” Gard said.

Farmer Bros.’ contention that illegal immigrants should be denied workers’ comp benefits is “not a widely supported stance” among California employers, said David DePaolo, president of Workcompcentral.com, a news and legal research website in Camarillo.

David Schwartz, past president of the California Applicants’ Attorneys Assn., suggested that some employers might have been reluctant to back Farmer Bros. because they “are hiring these people knowing they are undocumented ... and could get in trouble.”

Advocates for tougher immigration control criticized the ruling and called for the federal government to get tough in penalizing employers who hire illegal immigrants.

“We can’t reward people for breaking the law,” said Andy Ramirez, a spokesman for Friends of the Border Patrol, a Covina-based group that sends members to patrol the U.S. border with Mexico.

“Employers of illegal aliens should be charged and prosecuted to the full extent of the law,” he said.