DC Court Says Illegal Immigrants Can Receive Workers' Compensation
Amid the hustle and bustle of the holiday season, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals in December issued an important and interesting ruling which held that an undocumented worker injured while working is eligible under D.C.'s statute to receive workers' compensation payments.
Like so many people in our current workforce, Palemon Gonzales originally obtained employment with Asylum Company, an entity who owned and operated the D.C. bar where Gonzales worked, by using a fake identity and another person's social security number.
Gonzales was working at the bar as a busboy on June 30, 2005, when a customer threw a bottle that hit Gonzales in the right eye, blinding him. Gonzales had to have his dislocated lens reattached through surgery and he wasn't able to return to work until January 25, 2006. The record is somewhat unclear as to when the employer came to know Gonzales was an undocumented immigrant, but in any case, the employer decided to not pay Gonzales' workers' compensation claim based largely on the argument that an illegal immigrant is ineligible for worker's compensation benefits.
In ruling that the employer was in fact obligated to make workers' compensation payments to the illegal immigrant, the D.C. court focused largely on the fact that D.C.'s workers' compensation statute defines "employee" broadly, and in so doing makes no mention of "illegal aliens" or immigration status in general. Importantly, the court also noted the strong public policy argument which supports undocumented workers' eligibility for benefits under the workers' compensation statute. The court reasoned that if employers were not required to make workers' compensation payments to injured undocumented workers, then employers would have a strong economic incentive to hire undocumented workers. Such a result would contravene the stated purpose of one of our primary immigration laws, the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, which explicitly sought to deter employers from hiring undocumented workers. Interestingly, the definition of an "employee" under Iowa's workers' compensation statute is very similar to the definition utilized in the D.C. statute.
I can't believe this ruling. Amazing that someone that used fake/illegal identification to gain employment can then be covered under workers comp.
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