A California court has ruled that undocumented workers in the state are entitled
to workers' compensation benefits when they are injured on the job.
The California Court of Appeal for the 2nd District said that California law
states that immigration status is irrelevant to the issue of liability to pay
compensation to an injured employee.
"Were it otherwise, unscrupulous employers would be encouraged to hire
aliens unauthorized to work in the United States, by taking the chance that
the federal authorities would accept their claims of good faith reliance upon
immigration and work authorization documents that appear to be genuine,"
the court said.
The case centered on whether Rafael Ruiz was an employee at Farmer Brothers
Coffee under the workers' compensation rules of California. Farmers Brothers
Coffee says that at the time of the injury, he fell outside the definition of
employee because he was unauthorized to work in the United States under the
Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, arguing the federal law preempts
the state law.
The court rejected the company's argument.
The company also argued that Ruiz's use of a fraudulent Social Security card
and fraudulent green card to obtain employment, and then putting a false Social
Security number on his workers' compensation claim form, violated a state provision
that makes it a criminal offense to make a knowingly false or fraudulent material
representation for the purpose of obtaining workers' compensation benefits.
The court rejected this argument as well, saying "it was employment, not
the compensable injury, that Ruiz obtained as a direct result of the use of
fraudulent documents."
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