Thread: Suit contends illegal pickers undercut firm

http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/ho ... 250390.php

Tuesday, August 22, 2006
Suit contends illegal pickers undercut firm
O.C. attorney represents employer using legal help.
By AMY TAXIN
The Orange County Register
An Orange County attorney filed a lawsuit Monday accusing a Kern County farmer of hiring illegal immigrants to undercut his client's contract to provide blueberry pickers during harvest.

The suit on behalf of farm-labor contractor AgriLabor is the first in a series of suits that attorney David Klehm of Anaheim says he has undertaken since quitting his stable job as a medical-malpractice lawyer two months ago to take on California companies that he says skirt immigration law.

Klehm, 42, said his goal isn't to go after undocumented immigrants but rather the employers that make it tough for businesses to compete if they hire workers legally. Klehm, whose office is in Santa Ana, started a Web site in June with help from anti-illegal-immigration activists to reach out to companies that say they are being outbid for jobs or losing work because their legal labor costs are higher.

"I am representing companies that have lost business or are going out of business because of the significant impact this issue has on their bottom line," Klehm said. "It doesn't matter what side of the aisle you're on politically – you've got to support someone playing by the rules."

According to a copy of the suit filed in Kern County Superior Court, AgriLabor – a division of Los Angeles-based Global Horizons Inc. – had a contract to provide farmworkers to help Munger Brothers LLC pick blueberries over a nine-week harvest from April to June.

LOCAL CONTRACTORS
At the peak of the harvest, AgriLabor was expected to provide 600 workers.

But according to the suit, Munger, a farm in Delano, ended its contract with AgriLabor in the middle of May – at the start of the peak harvest – arguing that the workers provided failed to pick berries quickly enough.

Instead, Munger contracted through two local companies that AgriLabor said hire illegal immigrants. While AgriLabor obtained temporary visas and provided housing for its workers from Thailand and Central America, the suit alleges that the other providers didn't meet such requirements, enabling them to offer Munger a cheaper deal.

Klehm's accusations could not be verified outside of the lawsuit. He said he obtained information about other Munger laborers from their companies' field supervisors.

No evidence was provided in Klehm's claim to verify the accusations. AgriLabor is seeking more than $3 million in damages, alleging breach of contract and unfair competition from Munger and local labor providers Ayala Agricultural Services and J & A Contractors.

No one could comment at Munger's offices. Ayala Agricultural Services and J & A Contractors could not be reached.

INCREASED ENFORCEMENT
The lawsuit comes as the U.S. government steps up work-site enforcement in the face of complaints from anti-illegal-immigration activists, many of whom say federal authorities have done too little to penalize employers that hire illegal immigrants.

So far this year, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has started 219 criminal investigations of employers suspected of hiring illegally. In April, ICE arrested seven managers at pallet-distributor IFCO Systems and charged them with conspiring to encourage illegal immigration.

John Trasviña, general counsel for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, said he had no sympathy for employers who exploit undocumented immigrants, but thought a policy-based solution would cover more ground than moving cases through the courts.

The U.S. Supreme Court earlier this year dismissed a case filed under anti-racketeering laws against a Georgia-based company by workers who said their employer suppressed wages by hiring illegal immigrants.

"The answer is better labor law and safety enforcement, and the answer is making sure people who need to work in the United States have visas," Trasviña said. "Those are both much more effective ways of solving problems than litigation using antitrust laws."

NOVEL APPROACH
Klehm, a former Marine who grew up in Pittsburgh, said he became concerned about the impact of illegal immigration on local hospitals when he spoke with doctors during his malpractice work. He wanted to get to the heart of the issue and said he was surprised to learn how little litigation had been filed against employers suspected of knowingly hiring undocumented immigrants.

His Web site, , reports receiving thousands of hits since it was launched in June.

Klehm said he hasn't found any other California cases that use antitrust laws – which prohibit companies from conspiring to prevent competition – when dealing with immigration-related issues.

Neither has Robert Badal, a Los Angeles attorney specializing in antitrust law.

"I think this is a novel approach using some fairly standard Cartwright Act jurisprudence," Badal said, referring to California's antitrust law.

"This issue is going to keep percolating up in a number of ways, and this is one company's way of dealing with it."

Its all about Money

Now this is very encouraging. This attorney is in Santa Ana, a huge sanctuary city. More momentum, excellent! Hope we hear how his cases go. He ought to have more work than he can handle, that's for sure.

http://www.pe.com

Tuesday August 22, 2006

California law used to target businesses using illegal immigrants

By PETER PRENGAMAN

The Associated Press

LOS ANGELES

National anti-illegal immigration groups and disgruntled businesses are taking the fight against undocumented workers to California courts.

In the first of dozens of expected lawsuits, a temporary employment agency that supplies farm workers sued a grower and a two competing companies on Monday.

Using California's unfair competition statutes, the plaintiff claimed the competitors gained an unfair advantage by hiring undocumented immigrants who accept lower wages and don't demand pensions or workers compensation.

Similar cases claiming violations of federal anti-racketeering laws have seen mixed results. The California suits are believed to be the first based on a state's unfair competition laws, legal experts said.

National anti-immigration groups are helping finance the legal actions, believing businesses in other states with similar laws will use the tactic and spark a national wave of litigation that could become a major deterrent to hiring illegal immigrants.

"We see the legal profession bringing to this issue the kind of effect it's had on consumer product safety," said Mike Hethmon of the Immigration Reform Law Institute, a Washington D.C.-based anti-illegal immigration group backing the California suits.

Filed in Kern County Superior Court by Santa Monica-based Global Horizons, the lawsuit claimed Munger Brothers, a grower, hired illegal immigrant workers from Ayala Agricultural Services and J & A Contractors. All the defendants are based in the farm rich Central Valley.

The suit alleges that Munger Brothers had a contract with Global Horizons to provide more than 600 blueberry pickers this spring but nixed the agreement so it could hire illegal immigrants.

"Competitors hiring illegal immigrants is hurting our business badly," Global Horizons president Mordechai Orian said. "It's to the point that doing business legally isn't worth it."

Ayala Agricultural Services manager Javier Rodriguez hadn't seen the suit but said the company doesn't hire undocumented immigrants.

"If somebody doesn't have a green card or work documents, we don't hire them," he said.

Messages left with Munger Brothers and J & A Contractors were not immediately returned.

The suits are the latest attempt by anti-illegal immigration groups to do what they claim the federal government isn't enforcing immigration law. In recent years, activists have staged protests at day labor sites, set up Web sites to post the names of companies suspected of hiring illegal immigrants, and assembled civilian patrol groups to watch the U.S.-Mexico border.

With an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the United States, undocumented workers are a large part of the nation's work force.

Immigration law enforcement at work sites, however, is limited. In fiscal year 1999, there were 2,849 work site arrests compared to 1,145 last year, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

To prove competitors hire illegal immigrants, businesses could use public records involving prior violations, testimony from former employees who have worked alongside illegal immigrants, and recovered W-2 tax forms that show people working under fake names and Social Security numbers, said David Klehm, the lead lawyer for cases in Southern California.

Companies planning to file additional lawsuits include farms and factories that depend heavily on immigrant labor, Klehm said.

Legal experts said the cases could be difficult to win. Under the California statutes, plaintiffs must prove a competitor's activity directly harmed their business.

"Unless you've got smoking gun evidence, it's hard to tie economic loss of one business to another's practices," said Niels Frenzen, a law professor at the University of Southern California

He believes it's the first time the unfair competition law has been used to target illegal immigration.

The Global Horizons lawsuit came after a settlement was reached in a Washington state class action suit in which employees of Zirkle Fruit Co. sued their employer for driving down wages by hiring undocumented workers.

Based on federal anti-racketeering laws, the suit was settled for $1.3 million in January after the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a lower court decision to dismiss it.

Howard Foster, the lead plaintiff lawyer in the Washington case, said he expected such suits to multiply as business owners learn it's often easy to a competitor hired illegal immigrants.

"So many people talk openly about using false documents to assemble an illegal work force," Foster said. "And when you have IDs with upside down numbers and backward pictures, you know they are fake."

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On the Net:

http://www.illegalemployers.org

Published: Tuesday, August 22, 2006 12:22 PDT