Court Lets Injured Workers Sue Farmers

The Supreme Court, reversing Reagan Administration policy, ruled unanimously Wednesday that migrant farm workers who are hurt on the job may sue their employers, even if they have received state workers’ compensation.

Although workers’ compensation is the exclusive remedy for most on-the-job accidents, Congress in 1983 sought to bolster the legal rights of migrant and seasonal farm workers. In responding to reports of workers being abused by farm bosses who subjected them to dangerous work conditions, Congress gave migrants the right to go directly to federal court to seek damages for any work-related injuries.

Nevertheless, the Reagan Administration issued a regulation undercutting this right. If a state provided workers’ compensation to farm workers, the Labor Department said, those benefits shall be “the exclusive remedy” for any migrant worker injured on the job.

The high court threw out that regulation Wednesday. The decision marked the third time this year that the justices have overturned a Reagan Administration policy.

“This court may be reluctant to develop its own remedies for the injured, but it will at least respect a clear congressional mandate,” said Harvard law professor Laurence H. Tribe, who represented the migrant workers. “It will not defer to the executive branch when it tries to gut the law.”

Last month, the court said that federal officials had violated the Social Security law by making it difficult for poor and disabled children to qualify for monthly benefits. A day later, the court said that the Reagan White House had misused its authority to block the issuance of product warning labels for workers and consumers.

Last spring, after the justices had narrowed the reach of civil rights law, some Democrats suggested that a Republican-dominated court could not be trusted to fairly interpret congressional statutes. But the three recent rulings show the court is willing to rebuke the Republican-controlled executive branch.

As a practical matter, Wednesday’s ruling means that farm workers may seek large damage awards if they are severely injured on the job.

The case involved 19 Florida farm workers who were jammed into a van owned by the Adams Fruit Co. on May 8, 1985. They were on their way to pick oranges when the vehicle blew a tire and overturned, injuring 10 workers.

They were entitled to lost wages and direct medical expenses. But legal services lawyers went to federal court seeking a damage award to compensate the workers for their permanent injuries, as well as for pain and suffering. A federal judge in Orlando dismissed the suit based on the Labor Department policy.

But, last March, an appeals court in Atlanta reinstated the suit. However, an appeals court in Virginia had issued a contradictory ruling on the same issue, and the justices took the case to resolve the conflict (Adams Fruit Co. vs. Barrett, 88-2035).

“Before, nothing has seemed to work for migrant workers,” said Nora Leto, a lawyer in Bartow, Fla., who filed the suit. “Now, if they are sprayed with pesticides like they are insects or put in unsafe vans, they can go to court.” The law makes no exception for illegal aliens, she noted.

Agricultural employers called the ruling a costly setback.

“This means farmers could face some enormous verdicts which they are not covered for,” said John J. Rademacher, general counsel for the American Farm Bureau Federation in Park Ridge, Ill. He said 35 states, including California, provide workers’ compensation for migrant workers, so employers have assumed that they did not need extra liability insurance.