Lead Opinion
Continental PET Technologies, Inc. (Continental) appeals the affirmation by the superior court of an award of benefits to Juana Sandoval Palacias (Palacias) by the State Workers’ Compensation Board. Continental contends that because of Palacias’s illegаl immigrant status, the trial court erred in finding the existence of an employer/employee relationship. We disagree and affirm.
The factual findings of the Appellate Division of the State Board of Workers’ Compensation must be affirmed by the superior court and by this Court when supported by аny evidence. Ga. Pacific Corp. v. Wilson.
Continental denied her initial claim for workers’ compensation coverage for medical expenses and for lost wages. Following a hеaring, an administrative law judge (ALJ) determined that Palacias was injured in the course of her employment with Continental, and the ALJ directed Continental to pay Palacias workers’ compensation benefits. Finding this decision was supported by a preponderance of compеtent and credible evidence, the Board adopted the award as its own, which ruling was subsequently affirmed by the superior court. The lone enumeration of error is that the superior court erred in failing to reverse the decision of the Board.
1. Continental first argues that Palacias is barred from seeking workers’ compensation benefits under Georgia law because federal law makes it unlawful to employ an illegal alien and therefore any employment contract between Continental and Palacias was void. Based on this premise, Continental argues thаt Palacias was never an employee and that therefore Continental cannot be liable for workers’ compensation benefits for the injury suffered by Palacias.
Georgia’s Workers’ Compensation Act provides that, excepting circumstances not applicаble here, an employee includes “every person in the service of another under any contract of hire or apprenticeship.”
Preemption is a doctrine whiсh ousts a State or other governmental entity from the exercise of police power in an area in which the power of federal government is, by law or by implication, preeminent. Owen v. City of Atlanta.
“Whether federal statutes or regulations preempt state law is a question of
Continental does not argue that Congress has expressly preempted the law in this area nor that the IRCA directly conflicts with Georgia’s law on workers’ compensation. Indeed, when considering the IRCA, Wet Walls v. Ledezma recently concluded that “there is no express preemption or directly conflicting law” that would preclude Georgia from awarding workers’ compensation benefits to an illegal aliеn. Id. at 687 (1).
Rather, Continental argues only that “Congress has regulated the field of the status of illegal aliens so extensively as to make clear its intent to control the employment status of those persons. . . . [T]here is a strong implication that Congress intended to have sole determination аs to the inability of illegal aliens to attain employee status in this country.”
Although the IRCA and accompanying regulations address in detail the hiring of undocumented aliens, they do not purport to intrude into the area of what protections a State may afford these aliens. Nothing in the IRCA or аccompanying regulations hints at a desire to deny workers’ compensation benefits to injured employees, whether undocumented or otherwise. The Florida District Court of Appeals specifically held that the IRCA does not “so thoroughly occupy the field as to require a rеasonable inference that Congress left no room for states to act.” Safeharbor Employer Svcs. I v. Velazquez.
Finally, Wet Walls v. Ledezma held that “although this is an issue of first impression in Georgia, other states that have addressed this issue have concluded there is no conflict between IRCA and a state’s workers’ compensation statutes that prohibits an illegal alien from receiving benefits.” Id. at 687 (1). Indeed, the Minnesota Supreme Court has held:
As written, the IRCA does not prohibit unauthorized aliens from receiving state workers’ compensation benefits generally. . . . The focus of the IRCA is on preventing employers from hiring unauthorized aliens. Aside from the prohibition on tendering fraudulent documents, the IRCA does not prohibit unauthorized aliens from seeking or accepting employment in the United States. The IRCA is not aimed at impairing existing state labor protections____[W]e conclude that the IRCA was not intended to preclude the authority of stаtes to award workers’ compensation benefits to unauthorized aliens.
(Citations omitted.) Correa v. Waymouth Farms.
These holdings are consistent with the intеnt of the IRCA. The Connecticut Supreme Court noted that “[t]he primary purpose of the [IRCA] was to establish procedures that inhibit the employment of undocumented workers and to punish employers who knowingly offer jobs to those workers.” Dowling v. Slotnik.
Continental cites to the U. S. Supreme Court case of Hoffman Plastic Compounds v. Nat. Labor Relations Bd.
Based on the above, we hold that federal law does not preempt Georgia law on the question of whether or not an illegal alien may receive workers’ compensation benefits for employment as defined by OCGA § 34-9-1. Since this statute defines employee as “every person in the service of another under any contract of hire or apprenticeship,” “every person” would necessarily include illegal aliens. OCGA § 34-9-1 (2). And, “[e]xceрt in plain and indisputable cases the question of whether one is an employee within the meaning of the Workmen’s Compensation Act, and whether an injury received by such person was received in the course of the employment, are questions of fact for decision by the [B]oаrd.” Employers Ins. Co. of Alabama v. Bass.
It is undisputed that Palacias performed services for Continental such that she would be considered an employee under OCGA § 34-9-1 (2). Thе ALJ found that she was an employee and was injured and eligible for Title 34 benefits during this employment. The Board adopted these findings, which decision was affirmed by the superior court. As there was evidence to support the findings, we must affirm.
2. Continental next argues that the fraud perpetrated by Pala-cias in using false papers to obtain employment vitiates her right to recover workers’ compensation benefits for her injuries. We rejected this argument in Dynasty Sample Co. v. Beltran,
Judgment affirmed.
Notes
Ga.-Pacific Corp. v. Wilson,
OCGA § 34-9-1 (2).
8 USCS §§ 1324a; 1324c.
8 CFR § 274a.12.
Owen v. City of Atlanta,
Ga. Public Svc. Comm. v. CSX Transp.,
Gentry v. Volkswagen of America,
Wet Walls v. Ledezma,
Safeharbor Employer Svcs. I v. Velazquez, 860 S2d 984, 986 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2003).
Correa v. Waymouth Farms,
The Reinforсed Earth Co. v. Workers’ Comp. Appeal Bd. (Astudillo),
Dowling v. Slotnik,
Hoffman Plastic Compounds v. Nat. Labor Relations Bd.,
Employers Ins. Co. of Alabama v. Bass,
Abdul-Hakim v. Mead School &c. Products,
Dynasty Sample Co. v. Beltran,
Concurrence Opinion
concurring fully and specially.
While I concur fully in the majority opinion, I write separately to underscore the importance of our holding that Palacias is an “employee” for purposes of Georgia’s Workers’
When the Act was first passed in 1920, the definition of the essential term “employee” rеad in relevant part:
(b) Employee shall include every person, including a minor in the service of another under any contract of hire or apprenticeship, written or implied, except one whose employment is not in usual course of the trade, business, occupation or profession of the employer. . . . Minors are included even though working in violation of any child labor law or other similar statute, provided that nothing herein contained shall be construed as repealing or altering any such law or statute. . . .
Ga. L. 1920, pp. 167, 168. While later revisions to this statute moved the language concerning child workers further down in the paragraph and thus a few more lines away from the language defining employees as “every person under any contract of hire or apprenticeship,” both parts of the statute have survived virtually intact over the years. See OCGA § 34-9-1 (2).
From the moment this legislation was enacted, the General Assembly antiсipated that employers might hire illegal workers and intended that such workers be covered by its workers’ compensation law. In 1920, the legislature was most concerned that such workers might well be children working in violation of the child labor laws recently passed. Today, it may be more likely that the worker has entered the United States in violation of federal immigration laws. As to all illegal workers, however, the State’s fundamental policy — implied in the original statute’s emphasis on child workers, stated outright in cases thereafter, and codified at last in 1994 — remains paramount today: that the Act “be construed reasonably and liberally” for the purpose of extending its “beneficent provisions ... to every class of workman and employee that can fairly be brought within [them].” Lee v. Claxton,
Under the current statutory scheme, employees cannot sue employers for injuries sustained on the job. Likewise, employers cannot plead the illegal nature of the employment contract аfter an employee whom they have included for underwriting purposes on their workers’ compensation policy has been injured, regardless of whether or not they knew that the worker was illegal. The purpose of workers’ compensation insurance is to provide paymеnt after a worker is injured on the job, and in conjunction with the Act eliminates questions as to the relative knowledge or fault of employers and employees, either at the time of injury or at the time the employment relationship was created. Slaten v. Travelers Ins. Co.,
When we hold that Palacias is entitled to workers’ compensation benefits despite her illegal status and her fraudulent obtainment of employment, then, we do only what the Workers’ Compensation Act has long required: to enforce its social contract between the employer, the person who retains the benefit of an employee’s labor, and the employee, now injured on the employer’s job. To allow an employer to reap the benefit of an employee’s services (even when such services are rendered by an illegal alien), without holding the employer responsible for the payment of workers’ compensation benefits when the employee is injured on the job, would break the social contract between the employer and its employee and undermine
I am authorized to state that Presiding Judge Ruffin, Judge Barnes, Judge Phipps and Judge Ellington join in this opinion.