marianna this case is controlled by a narrow but important principle of federal preemption law and it is that a party cannot be required to pay money under state law for exercising a privilege  or complying with the duty created by federal law but the duty here and why is in conflict with with the the federal why is the federal law free and the state law and how do you explain that the as i understand the record if i'm wrong not wrong or if i'm wrong let me know i believe it was supervising the his supervisor or the manager king who fired the credit and the sole reason for his firing as i understand it if they had to because he he would because of the change in ownership of the is his visa was no longer valid right yet at the same time an accommodation was made to his fellow employee for the same reason and yet this person was not given an opportunity i'm missing something in problem you know you stand there and you tell us well that's the reason but that's not right you are no longer here at the time you were  looking your no one up here so you have to accept the facts in the light most favorable to the verdict so i think you can say the reason they fired him was because of the visa all you can say is that they claim that to be the case and the jury must have found there was no reason and if you assume that that wasn't the reason i don't see what you have you assume that was not the reason that that was a lie conveniently put forward by your client in the hope of getting a little boy that that's how we read the jury verdict and if if you if you want to read the jury really some other way you have to explain to me from based on the jury structure or the evidence or something as to why we should reason in the one way our apprehension argument does not depend on contesting the question and my answer is that the statutory duty doesn't depend on the company's mode once the company learns under the under the statute once the company learned that mystery and calls are no longer had a valid visa the statute court's opinion it says that that an employer has a duty to discharge and ploy upon discovery of his undocumented status now and so you may ask well does discharge compas putting him on putting him on leave and i think the answer to that is no not only because the word discharge is so different from putting on leave but also because every federal law or regulation that we found that looks at the status of personnel who  on leave treats them as employees under the national labor relations act for example someone who is on a leave of absence from a company is treated as an employee for purposes of voting in union elections and that alleged breach of the common law duty not to terminate except for good cause so his only claim was directed at the terminated not the failure to rehire or or nothing else it was just a straight terminations claim and in that regard i i've i've thought a lot about which of the supreme court princeton cases this case is most analogous to and it seems to me it is it's very unusual for a state law duty to result in the imposition of money damages for compliance with a federal law judy but the one the case that i found that i think is most analogous is mcculloch versus maryland for nearly two hundred years ago in which the supreme court held among other things that a state could not impose a tax or a fine on a national bank or its employee and the plaintiff in the call up was the bank cashier from the baltimore branch of the first national bank of the united states he had had a fine imposed upon him for for conducting transactions without having paid the tax to the state of maryland that maryland had imposed on the first national bank and chief justice marshall and that decision gave the first articulation of what is now known as the purpose conflict doctrine and that is the state that he said have no power by taxation or otherwise to retard impede or burden the operation of the constitutional laws enacted by congress any such and such action is preempted because as the court later put it in hines versus devitt it stands as an obstacle to the accomplishment of congress's objectives hoffman and the plain language of the statute the statute itself makes it illegal for an employer to quote continue to employ the alien in the united states knowing that the alien is or has become an authorized alien with respect to to the last reason but you literally have to fire no that's correct that's not the test under the statute the statute turns on the employers knowledge that the visa is no longer valid and there's no dispute in the rack there's no dispute that that was conveyed to the employer that you're also conveyed that you could also not only was it these invalid but there was a way to get a visa in fifteen days by thing a thousand bucks the one h b visa which you get progress the any credit but you would never instructed counsel to get one for your client that's right it might give him a chance to pay the thousand dollars if your client wasn't willing to pay the thousand i'm guessing he would have been happy to  if he said it is impossible to get him a visa is difficult the issue when we're if we get that far it seems to me you don't get that far anyway because what you're saying the mere fact that the law says that you can't hire him it doesn't really matter what him it doesn't matter what your subjective intent was that's right the law says you got a firearm and so even if you treated somebody else different it really doesn't make any difference to this man that's exactly right jennifer not me and in fact it would be absurd as a matter of federal policy to allow a company to be to be punished for acting lawfully and the complying with the federal duty with respect to one employee because it failed to do so with respect to another employee and this this comes back no well i think that's what you're saying the company can choose when to comply with the law and we're going to take a position that you know comes of this employee we can't you know we can't possibly keep him on an hour longer  believe you liar liar pants on fire but this is the this is no this is no more a jury question just because then skate then it would have been a proper jury question for trial to deal with and a motion for a new trial to deal with both you say work for your only sleep your only through the night that they both bring back the one legal issue as i understand it and that is your right to say that the federal law says that you must  they could break the law get him a visa do anything they wanted to and they can then separate you've got him thrown off the side and say but the law says and i have had that the fact that the federal law requires me to fire  it's wrong for for three reasons number one the question as to what motivated the employer was factually disputed on summary judgment ok now he says that that's that's good now i want to know what your legal authority is because he said it's a legal issue up there do you think it's a legal issue before the district judge on the motion for summary judgment that's a legal issue or whether it matters what is most correct this thing it doesn't matter and that's a legal  correct ok yes there was a vacuum of collectors of meth i just don't think so then the issues was very clear at the three stages before the trial court was there are factual dispute as to what possibility it's a question of whether it's in can and consistent with the federal to concord of the policy purpose that you see i raise the question because we're going to get where we are procedurally we're reviewing a motion for summary judgment  flat out says i have to fire him so that really matter what higher than the statute says even if i did conny and given all the benefits in the world i had to fire these folks correct and i don't think that is i think it's a legal issue of comparing the statutes side by side if they conflict with each other in actuality in practice why don't they conflict then why the three in the end because they clearly don't in this case because you have to ask the first question number one is the evidence under spewed on on here i'm just quickly going back to judge maryland's decision it's extremely long extremely detailed extremely full of facts yes and i read it and i read both of them now you remind me did she go on a disputed issue of fact that she go on an issue i believe she want to dispute the issue of fact with regards to this particular issue and summary judgment this is just raised as an attorney advice defense it wasn't raised as a possibility or as it's being discussed now that matter what i did with anybody else i have to file with my wireless man and therefore i can't be held liable under this california is that your relative to a point of fact right and on and on summary judgment that issue was disputed  they were declarations submitted from our expert mr bonaparte who described the wasn't required there was no requirement to fire mr on calls at that point in time if they were at least three options  did because i think he was pretty close to what outside counsel position was in your briefs and i'm not sure because i don't i don't remember that business that he was advised by anybody he had to fire and i just i don't remember about summary judgment i know what trial now at the most of her new trial we saw the same legal question and so we can go back and take a look at is there a legal error been made relative to allowing this to go forward because it could factor a legal following the law and breaking the law with him i'm paraphrasing and his response is a very nonchalant i don't know does that give us the pretext in other words if that's the case i think if i understand your argument even though you have this federal law and your friend to look at the preemption issue you have to slide down and see what the what the california law and what the california elements are and you you get into those before you can decide whether this is automatic preemption because i've got a virus sure so you get by one case it says well if you've got a bad visa actual terminations of the employees what's the motivation you can always theoretically come up with any good cause in your mind there's lots of things you can point to say this was good that's good we don't like this we don't like that the question is what's actually motivating them and what did the jury express counsel going wrong with his argument that because the law says you must be fired and so it's very it's authority where is he going wrong if they fail to recognize that the the pairing up of the particular federal law against a particular state was weeks to be preempted is that the problem it doesn't even apply in this case the employer in this case disregarded the whole law well i'm going to let you go it does because he says the employer says forget about my actions or about my subjective actions i had a duty of the law to fi h one b visas and that and this is he had over the years and was trying unsuccessful and knew all the details of it was working with himself but then he had that if since day one and then it was their responsibility i believe to follow a good cause requirement before they fire him without any warning coming to restore saying you're gone one day to a least follow their own attorney's advice and apply for these alternate visas one that i believe mr lerner testified at tr facts i had such a duty under the federal law which again goes back to preemption you know i can't consider all that would in fact if i read the moros opinion and i'm hearing you what you do is you go down and what's been done is to analyze what is the california law because the federal law with regard to visas just didn't preempt everything in california it preempted only a specific statute so i guess you have to look at that that you because if it doesn't directly apply as i understand preemption law if it doesn't directly apply then we have cases of say well we're not going to fire the creators because you're just saying as i understand your argument other than the silver bullet the law says no so we've got to do it you've got to look and see what happens in your state law if you're faced we we repeatedly range the conflict between the duty to terminate the string calls and and state law to the extent that it would in force an alleged implied contract we get we cited how many repeat o don't follow cross state law because the only way you get to the because it seems like you have to analyze what the federal statutes doing when it interacts with the state law and as i read judge girls to feel like is that they're very fair and they go through everything they interact and she and she her reasoning appears to have been that that be caused because federal law only require the termination and then expressly for bid the payment labor context others in the bankruptcy context most of them say you can't penalize somebody for for exercising a right granted under federal law this is the unusual case i'm going to go back and review this bullet is there but you can't get there until you get into the facts of the case and i think that's what good morrow did still with the underlying purpose that we got to figure out whether there's preemption here well and we're not we're not claiming that that the immigration reform and control act is is a silver bullet that you know that preempt sort of everything in its in its path we're not arguing feel preemption our our our preemption theory is very narrow and that is when state law targets a terminations that is required law would impose a burden to use chief justice marshall's words or if it was in some way stand as an obstacle that is create a disincentive which is what most of that most of these cases talk about is creating this instance for why he's merrill much  there's no conflict between acting in good faith under state law and compliance first of all and that's your problem here's here's the problem with the jury verdict to follow up on that point it may well be and this is the concluded why yes federal law did require you to fire mr and called but we really don't like the fact that you you know that you treated him differently and therefore we're going to impose liability on you even though we agreed that you acted with good cause that's true we it often seems that you know that prevention issues are technical that there that there wouldn't but but the preemption of state law by federal law it as an important and essential part of our system and that's why the federal courts have have been so vigil including the supreme court over the years in ensuring that state law does not intrude into the performance of duties under federal law and  we believe that the district court ignored that fundamental principle and that she should have granted summary judgment were pre christian just one is for is that the proposition that federal this for this particular federal statute requires the firing what is your