Georgia Appellate Court Upholds Workers’ Compensation Coverage Of Undocumented Worker

IMMIGRANTS & EMPLOYMENT

Immigrants' Employment Rights and Remedies

GEORGIA APPELLATE COURT UPHOLDS WORKERS’ COMPENSATION COVERAGE OF UNDOCUMENTED WORKER
Immigrants' Rights Update, Vol. 18, No. 7, November 8, 2004

The Court of Appeals of Georgia recently affirmed the right of an injured worker to receive coverage under the state’s workers’ compensation system. In doing so, the court rejected the employer’s argument that an employer-employee relationship between it and the worker did not exist because a federal law prohibits the hiring of undocumented workers. The court also rejected the employer’s contention that the worker’s use of fraudulent documents to secure her job should preclude her from receiving workers’ compensation benefits.

Juana Sandoval Palacias worked as a janitor for Continental PET Technologies, Inc., for five years prior to her accident. After Palacias was injured, she filed a claim with Continental seeking workers’ compensation coverage for her medical expenses and lost wages. Continental denied her claim. Following a hearing, an administrative law judge found that Palacias had been injured in the course of her employment and ordered Continental to pay her workers’ compensation benefits. The State Board of Workers’ Compensation adopted the award determined by the judge, and a superior court affirmed the ruling. Continental brought the case to the Georgia appellate court, claiming that the superior court had erred in failing to reverse the State Board’s decision.

Continental did not dispute that Palacias performed services for the company in a manner that rendered her an employee under Georgia law. However, Continental’s first claim was that Palacias was barred from seeking workers’ compensation benefits because federal law makes it unlawful to employ undocumented workers. Therefore, Continental rationalized, any employment contract between the company and Palacias was void.

The court noted that Georgia’s Workers’ Compensation Act provides that the definition of “employee” includes “every person in the service of another under any contract of hire or apprenticeship.” It found that this broad definition includes undocumented workers and that therefore the question to be decided was whether the “employer sanctions” provisions of the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) preempt the statute. Specifically, the court had to decide whether Georgia’s workers’ compensation statute is preempted by IRCA’s provisions prohibiting the hiring of undocumented workers and the use of fraudulent documents to obtain employment. Recognizing that the question of preemption is a question of congressional intent, the court found that neither IRCA nor its accompanying regulations “purport to intrude into the area of what protections a State may afford” undocumented workers.

The court then addressed Continental’s claim that the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Hoffman Plastic Compounds v. NLRB requires a finding that awarding workers’ compensation benefits to an undocumented worker contravenes IRCA. In Hoffman, the Court held that the policy concerns underlying IRCA prohibit the National Labor Relations Board from conferring back pay awards to undocumented immigrants who have been the victims of violations of the National Labor Relations Act. The Georgia court, however, noted that the Hoffman decision did not apply to more “traditional remedies” and that, post-Hoffman, two state jurisdictions—Florida and Minnesota—cited to this fact in preserving workers’ compensation coverage for undocumented workers. The court therefore found that federal law does not preempt Georgia law on the question of whether or not an undocumented worker can receive workers’ compensation benefits.

Continental’s second claim was that Palacias should be precluded from workers’ compensation coverage because she used fraudulent documents to obtain employment. The court rejected this argument, relying on a decision it issued in 1996 that rejected denial of workers’ compensation coverage when the employer failed to show a causal connection between the worker’s misrepresentation and the injury suffered by the employee. The court held that, similarly, because Continental failed to illustrate a causal connection in this case, its argument must fail.

Continental PET Technologies, Inc., v. Palacias, 2004 Ga. App. LEXIS 1225 (Sept. 13, 2004).