[Marxism] Court rules on workers' comp. Injured "illegal" immigrant wins S.C. case

[Greg McDonald <sabocat59@xxxxxxx>]

Court rules on workers' comp
Injured illegal immigrant wins S.C. case
By Robert Morris - The Sun News

In an opinion that illegal immigrants have equal
rights to workers' compensation payments, the state
Supreme Court has ruled that immigration status and
federal laws "do not undermine or diminish in any way"
labor protections to undocumented workers.

The ruling, released late last week, was in a workers'
compensation case called "Curiel v. Environmental
Management Services," involving a Mexican citizen who
was working in Charleston using fraudulent documents.
On a demolition job, an injury to Mario Curiel's right
eye caused a detached retina and cost him most of his
vision.

His employer, Environmental Management Services,
argued that Curiel was not eligible for workers'
compensation benefits because federal law prohibits
hiring illegal immigrants.

Lower courts had ruled that the state's workers'
compensation law explicitly includes illegal
immigrants, "whether lawfully or unlawfully employed,"
a view upheld by the state Supreme Court after an
October hearing in a ruling released Dec. 20.

"Disallowing benefits would mean unscrupulous
employers could hire undocumented workers without the
burden of insuring them, a consequence that would
encourage rather than discourage the hiring of illegal
workers," wrote Justice James Moore in the unanimous
opinion, which also cited a 2002 N.C. case that
established the same standard.

Myrtle Beach attorney David Canty, who has represented
numerous local illegal workers in their claims, hailed
the ruling as a definite standard on the issue. In the
past, some employers' lawyers tried to argue Canty's
undocumented clients were ineligible for compensation,
he said.

Other reasons abound for providing workers'
compensation payments to all workers, Canty said. If
not, private workers' compensation insurance carriers
would profit unfairly by taking employers' premiums
for a class of employee ineligible to receive
compensation.

Attorney Hubert Wood III of Charleston, who defended
Environmental Management Services against Curiel's
claim, said that the state workers' compensation law
as it is written would have been difficult to
overcome.

"That's going to be in the lap of the legislature,"
Wood said.

Wood's argument contained a more legally persuasive
component, he said, based on the legal doctrine that
if you hide a pre-existing handicap during hiring,
then suffer an injury because of it, your employer is
not responsible.

Because Curiel submitted fraudulent documents to gain
employment, he was hired under false pretenses, Wood
said, so Environmental Management Services should have
been allowed to opt out of that contract when his
illegal status came to light.

"If the employer is doing everything you're supposed
to be doing and is the victim of an individual
perpetrating fraud on you, in that situation the
employer ought to be able to void the employment
contract," Wood said.

The Supreme Court, however, ruled there was no
connection between Curiel's fraud and his subsequent
injury, so he was entitled to compensation.

Calling the ruling "terrible," Patricia Matthews,
Horry County team leader of the Federal Immigration
Reform and Enforcement Coalition, said injuries to
illegal immigrants should be an additional opportunity
to penalize employers who hire them. The workers
should still receive the payment, she said, but
employers should not be allowed to use private
insurance carriers to pay their claims.

"If an illegal alien is hurt at a job, the employer
should pay for it out of their own pocket," Matthews
said. "I think everyone who hires them is a traitor."

The state General Assembly passed a workers'
compensation reform package this year, but it did not
address immigration status. Instead, it focused on
measures to bring the costs of workers' compensation
down.

Some sort of bill has been introduced in the
legislature to bar workers' compensation for illegal
immigrants nearly every year for at least a decade,
Canty estimated, but that effort always dies in
committee.
Contact ROBERT MORRIS at 626-0294 or rmorris@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx



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