Minnesota Supreme Court Refuses To Limit Workers' Comp Recovery In Cases Involving Undocumented Workers

IMMIGRANTS & EMPLOYMENT

Immigrants' Employment Rights and Remedies

MINNESOTA SUPREME COURT REFUSES TO LIMIT WORKERS’ COMP RECOVERY IN CASES INVOLVING UNDOCUMENTED WORKERS
Immigrants' Rights Update, Vol. 17, No. 4, July 15, 2003

The Minnesota Supreme Court has held that undocumented workers are entitled to all benefits under that state’s workers’ compensation law, including wage benefits that are conditioned on an injured worker’s ability to conduct a diligent job search.

The plaintiff, Fernando Correa, was hired in 1999 by Waymouth Farms, which is a producer and packager of meat products and gifts. Correa’s job required him to lift boxes weighing up to 50 pounds. He injured his back in March 2000 and underwent back surgery as a result. He filed a workers’ compensation claim and received wage loss and medical benefits, as well as rehabilitation services. He returned to work part-time in December of that year, and was placed on light duty.

Less than two months later, Waymouth Farms notified Correa that the Immigration and Naturalization Service had “discovered” that the alien registration number he had provided did not exist, that the Social Security number he provided did not match his name, and that there was no alien registration number that corresponded with Correa’s name and birth date. The employer then suspended Correa and gave him 48 hours to provide documentation of his eligibility to be employed in the United States. Correa was fired after he told the employer that he could not provide the requested documentation.

He immediately began a job search. He testified that he located several potential jobs but was not offered employment because of his back injury and resulting work restrictions.

Two weeks after it fired Correa, the employer sought to terminate his benefits on the grounds that his wage loss was due to his status as an unauthorized worker, not his injury. The employer argued that, because Correa could not lawfully work in the U.S., he could not conduct a “diligent job search,” as required by the Minnesota workers’ compensation law. The compensation judge rejected that claim, and the Workers’ Compensation Court of Appeals affirmed, holding that “Correa’s unauthorized status did not, as a matter of law, prevent him from conducting a reasonable and diligent job search.” The employer appealed, and the state’s supreme court affirmed.

The court reasoned that “IRCA [the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, which provides for sanctions against employers that knowingly hire unauthorized workers] is not aimed at impairing existing state labor protections” and that “IRCA was not intended to preclude the authority of states to award workers’ compensation benefits to unauthorized aliens.” Accordingly, the court looked only at the state’s workers’ compensation statute and determined that the statute applies to “‘aliens,’ whether authorized or unauthorized.” Correa, therefore, was entitled to all benefits, as long as he conducted a “diligent job search,” which, he had done. The court also ruled that “immigration status is only one of the many facts and circumstances to be considered” when determining whether an injured worker has conducted a “diligent job search.”

Because Correa’s right to receive benefits under state law was clear, the court refused to address the employer’s argument that the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Hoffman Plastic Compounds v. NLRB, 535 U.S. 137 (2001), prohibits an award of benefits. Nevertheless, it noted “that to the extent that denying unauthorized aliens benefits predicated on a diligent job search gives employers incentive to hire unauthorized aliens in expectation of lowering their workers’ compensation costs, the purposes underlying the IRCA are not served.” (For a summary of the Hoffman decision, see “Supreme Court Bars Undocumented Worker from Receiving Back Pay Remedy for Unlawful Firing,” Immigrants’ Rights Update, Apr. 12, 2002, p. 10).

This is the first post-Hoffman decision to award full workers’ compensation benefits to an undocumented worker. Two other states, Michigan and Pennsylvania, have limited the awards to medical benefits. (For a discussion of the Michigan decision, see “Sanchez et al. v. Eagle Alloy, Inc.: Michigan Court of Appeals Limits Workers’ Compensation Recovery in Cases Involving Undocumented Workers,” IRU, Feb. 21, 2003.)

Correa v. Waymouth Farms, Inc., et al., 2003 Minn. LEXIS 394 (Minn. July 3, 2003).