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March 20th, 2006

"Undocumented Workers Entitled Compensation for Workplace Injury, Court Rules"

The Court of Appeals in New York, ruled in February that undocumented workers in the state are entitled to compensation including future lost wages for injuries suffered on the job, as are citizens of the United States or immigrants with work permits.

This was the first ruling of its kind by a U.S. court. The decision was prompted by two personal injury cases held together before the Court of Appeals.

Gorgonio Balbuena, a construction worker from Mexico, suffered serious workplace injuries in 2000 when he fell off a ramp at a Manhattan construction site. Balbuena testified that he could not continue working due to his skull fractures. He filed a lawsuit against the property owner, who in turn filed suit against his employer, Taman Management Corp.

Stanislaw Majlinger, a Polish construction worker, also sued his employer for compensation in January 2001, when a scaffold collapsed on him causing serious injury.

The defendant''s attorneys argued that the construction companies should not be held liable for the injuries. They said the employees working “illegally” in the United States and therefore should not be eligible to receive future lost wages.

However, the New York Court of Appeals ruled in favor of both workers in the personal injury cases, stating that the labor law “applies to all workers in qualifying employment situations—regardless of immigration status.”

An editorial in the Daily News said, “New York''s booming construction industry has given rise to an explosion of unsafe, even deadly, job sites.”

“In 2002, the Bureau of Labor Statistics says, contractors with fewer than 20 workers employed 38 percent of laborers but accounted for 56 percent of death,” the News said. “Deaths like these keep happening because there''s virtually no enforcement of building rules and no penalty for violating.”