Thread: Evans Fruits sued by Chicago attorney

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Lawsuit accuses Yakima Valley grower of hiring illegal immigrants
By The Associated Press


YAKIMA – A second Yakima Valley fruit grower has been sued by a Chicago attorney who accuses the company of hiring undocumented workers to depress wages.

Howard Foster filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court against Evans Fruit owner Bill Evans and orchard supervisor Juan Marin, accusing them of hiring 5,000 illegal immigrants in the past four years. Foster filed the lawsuit on behalf of two former Evans Fruit employees under federal racketeering laws.

Foster recently filed a similar suit against Zirkle Fruit executives in Zillah. The executives admitted no wrongdoing in a $1.3 million settlement reached in December.

Foster said farm workers at other agricultural companies in the Yakima Valley have called Foster since that settlement with similar allegations. He said he ultimately chose to sue the Yakima-based Evans Fruit because of its large employee pool.

"It's pretty flagrant," Foster told the Yakima Herald-Republic. "The company hires huge numbers of illegals and houses them and people they know that are illegal."

Owner Bill Evans referred all comments to Yakima attorney Brendan Monahan, who is defending him in this case. Monahan also represents the newspaper.

The company has conducted proper verification of work documents required by federal law, Monahan said, and while it's possible that some workers may have been hired with fraudulent documents, it does not mean that Evans or Marin knew they were forgeries.

"My sense is that this is the type of lawsuit that sounds very clever in a high-rise building in Chicago, but when you scrutinize the facts in the Yakima courtroom, I am confident they will find that it's completely baseless," he said.

Copyright © 2006 The Seattle Times Company

I don't care what others say but I think that anyone who doesn't speak English and works for peanuts is illegal. If they are legal they would work jobs that pay more money.

Legal Americans will and do work on farms. Not everyone is highly educated or have skills. In some areas where the factories have shut down thanks to NAFTA and CAFTA, farm work pays better than fast food. The only problem with it is that it does not provide year round income for people who want to live in one city.