Employers of illegal aliens can be sued by competitors
http://www.alamanceind.com/newfol~4/immig_48.html
This is an older article, but it was something I had never heard of, maybe you did.
Federal appeals court rules employers of illegal aliens can be sued by competitors
While suits against gunmakers by cities and crime victims have
all gone nowhere, due to courts all ruling that companies are not
liable to third parties for lawful acts - and all the class-action
and other third-party suits against cigarette companies by unions,
health-insurance firms, and others seeking compensation for alleged
indirect costs caused by others' smoking have also been rejected on
similar grounds - a federal appeals court in Feb. 2001 ruled that
people committing the felony of hiring illegal aliens can be sued
for triple the costs to third parties of their acts.
In the case of Commercial Cleaning Services LLC v. Colin
Cleaning Systems Inc., No. 00-7571, decided November 15, 2001,
the Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that 1996 Anti-Terrorism
And Effective Death Penalty Act does allow RICO suits by both
employers - and by extension, by employees - who are economically
harmed by other companies' hiring cheap-labor illegal aliens in the
local job market.
The appeals court specifically ruled in the 1999-filed case
that a company that loses business due to being underbid by a
competitor having lower costs due to hiring illegal aliens has
suffered a direct-enough injury to be able to sue it in federal
court under that 1996 law - and can get triple damages from that
competitor if it can prove it lost money because that competitor
hired illegals.
What was particularly important is that the Second Circuit
Court Of Appeals ruled that those losing business due to
competitors hiring illegals have what courts have rejected all the
big-city gunmaker lawsuits for lack of: "standing" - the legal term
for the right to file a suit.
Companies hiring illegals now have a whole lot more to worry
about than the rare possibility of an INS prosecution of management
resulting from an INS raid. For instance, will cities and school
districts be next to sue those knowingly hiring illegals - claiming
that their budgets have soared as a result, and seeking three times
the amount some economist can testify in court was the cost? And
will - as happened in the cigarette and gunmaker lawsuits - greedy
trial lawyers soon be seeing this as their next great opportunity?
