Lawsuits may follow if state denies workers’ comp to illegal immigrants
By Phil Drake on January 10, 2011
HELENA – Several attorneys and others warned a legislative committee Monday that if the state passed legislation prohibiting illegal immigrants from being able to collect workers’ compensation it could bring a cluster of lawsuits against Montana.
The proposal’s sponsor, Rep. Gordon Vance, R-Bozeman, told the state Judiciary committee that the idea for House Bill 71 comes from his experience with the workers’ compensation issue when he was on the Legislature’s Economic Interim Advisory Committee that examined the costs of the program.
“We are the best of something apparently because we have the highest workers’ compensation rates in the country,â€