Court Opinion

ID: 9701493
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 22:21:06.998347+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:24.134136
License: Public Domain

Justice NEWMAN.
I respectfully dissent. The Opinion Announcing the Judgment of the Court concludes that it is improper for courts to consider arguments for the creation of an exception, based on public policy, to the General Assembly’s statutory scheme for workers’ compensation benefits. Relying on this Court’s decision in Shick v. Shirey, 552 Pa. 590, 716 A.2d 1231 (1998), the Opinion Announcing the Judgment of the Court acknowledges the general rule of judicial self-restraint that is based on traditional notions of the separation of powers: “[w]here the legislature has spoken ... we will not interpret statutory provisions to advance matters of supposed public interest.” Id. at 1237. That self-imposed caution, however, is inappropriate in the present case, where Appellant bases its public policy argument on the clear Congressional mandate against employment of unauthorized aliens. See 8 U.S.C. § 1324. *482Where a party claims that the policy of the Pennsylvania General Assembly, as embodied in the Workers’ Compensation Act (WCA), runs afoul of federal legislative policy in the form of the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA),1 we are not asked to create an exception to a Pennsylvania legislative scheme based on our subjective understanding of what is in the public interest. Accordingly, I believe it appropriate for this Court to consider the argument of Appellant.
The decision of the United States Supreme Court in Hoffman Plastic Compounds, Inc. v. NLRB, 535 U.S. 137, 122 S.Ct. 1275, 152 L.Ed.2d 271 (2002), illustrates that where two legislative schemes apply to the same situation, one may have to yield to the higher policy interests served by the other. In Hoffman Plastic Compounds, an employer fired employees who were engaged in union organizing activities that were protected by Section 8(a)(3) of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), 29 U.S.C. § 158(a)(3). One of the fired employees, Jose Castro, was an unauthorized alien, and had fraudulently obtained employment by the submission of forged documents. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) determined that the employer’s activities violated Section 8(a)(3) of the NLRA, and ordered, inter alia, the reinstatement of the employees, including Castro, with back-pay. The employer objected that awarding backpay to Castro was contrary to the IRCA. The NLRB rejected this argument holding that, “the most effective way to accommodate and further the immigration policies embodied in [the IRCA] is to provide the protections and remedies of the [NLRA] to undocumented workers in the same manner as to other employees.” Id. at 1277 (quoting 326 N.L.R.B. at 1060). Following the denial of employer’s petition for review, the United States Supreme Court granted certiorari and reversed the NLRB.
*483In reversing, the Court considered the line of decisions that limited the powers of the NLRB, notwithstanding that the conduct of the employer in those cases clearly violated the NLRA and would ordinarily be subject to enforcement action by the NLRB, where the NLRB’s exercise of its powers transgressed other federal policies. See, e.g., Southern S.S. Co. v. NLRB, 316 U.S. 31, 62 S.Ct. 886, 86 L.Ed. 1246 (1942) (reversing NLRB order that reinstated seamen who engaged in a mutiny in violation of federal maritime law). The Court examined its decision in Sure-Tan, Inc. v. NLRB, 467 U.S. 883, 104 S.Ct. 2803, 81 L.Ed.2d 732 (1984), which considered the enforceability of an NLRB backpay and reinstatement award against an employer for reporting employees who were undocumented aliens involved in union organization activities to the Immigration and Naturalization Service for deportation. In Sure-Tan, the Court considered the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), the predecessor of the IRCA, and modified an order directing reinstatement of the undocumented aliens on the grounds that this remedy conflicted with the Congressional “objective of deterring unauthorized immigration that is embodied in the INA.” Id. at 903, 104 S.Ct. at 2814. While recognizing that its decision in Sure-Tan had held that undocumented aliens were “employees” for the purposes of the NLRA, the Court in Hoffman Plastic Compounds noted that Congressional immigration policy had changed so significantly since the decision in Sure-Tan as to require the Court to re-evaluate the conflict between federal labor and immigration policy.
Of particular importance presently, the Hoffman Plastic Compounds Court noted, “Under the IRCA regime, it is impossible for an undocumented alien to obtain employment in the United States without some party directly contravening2 explicit congressional policies.” Id. at 1283. The Court further stated that it could not “overlook this fact and allow [the NLRB] to award backpay to an illegal alien for years of work *484not performed, for wages that could not lawfully have been earned, and for a job obtained in the first instance by criminal fraud.” Id. The Court held that “awarding backpay to illegal aliens runs counter to policies underlying IRCA, policies the [NLRB] has no authority to enforce or administer” and “would unduly trench upon explicit statutory prohibitions critical to federal immigration policy, as expressed in the IRCA.” Id. at 1284. In so holding, the Court recognized that the NLRA makes no distinction between unauthorized aliens and other employees, and that the power to award backpay for an NLRA violation is ordinarily within the scope of remedies available to the NLRB, but nevertheless insisted that the Court “never deferred to the [NLRB’s] remedial preferences where such preferences potentially trench upon federal statutes and policies unrelated to the NLRA.” Id. at 1277.
Our present question, therefore, is whether the policy of the Pennsylvania General Assembly to afford workers’ compensation benefits to employees injured in work-related accidents should yield to the injunction of Congressional policy against employment of unauthorized aliens. I believe that it should. The primary function3 of Pennsylvania’s workers’ compensation system is to serve as a form of social insurance, so that a person injured on the job, who thereby loses “earning power” (i.e., the ability to work), receives income until the person recovers that lost earning power. See Hankee v. Wilkes-Barre/Scranton International Airport, 532 Pa. 494, 616 A.2d 614 (1992). In effect, benefits under the WCA stand in the place of the employee’s present earning power, which has been diminished by the work-related- injury. An unauthorized alien, however, by operation of IRCA, has no legal earning power. *485Accordingly, I do not believe that the Pennsylvania General Assembly intended the absurd result of supplying social welfare benefits in the form of a wage and employment-benefit substitute to one whom federal law says could not lawfully obtain those wages and benefits in the first place.
The preferable course is to announce, as a matter of public policy consistent with federal immigration law, that unauthorized aliens are not eligible for workers’ compensation benefits. One who obtains employment in a manner contrary to federal law should not benefit from that illegal employment relationship.'4 As the author of the Commonwealth Court’s opinion in Graves v. Workmen’s Compensation Appeal Board (Newman), 668 A.2d 606 (Pa.Cmwlth.1995), I opined that the General Assembly could not have intended that escaped convicts be eligible for workers’ compensation benefits because the creation of that employment relationship results from illegal conduct (i.e., an escape from prison). I believe the rationale of Graves applies here, and that we should assume that the legislature did not intend to reward those who violate federal law in obtaining employment by allowing them to participate in a social insurance scheme for Pennsylvania workers. Consequently, notwithstanding the absence of an express prohibition, I would interpret Pennsylvania’s Workers’ Compensation Act in a manner consistent with federal immigration policy and follow our rules of statutory construction that direct us to avoid absurd results. See 1 Pa.C.S. § 1922(1) (in ascertaining the intention of the General Assembly in the enactment of a statute, court presumes that the General Assembly does not intend a result that is absurd, impossible of execution or unreasonable).
For these reasons, I dissent.
Justice EAKIN joins this dissenting opinion.

. This is not, however, an issue of federal preemption. Appellant does not claim that the IRCA preempts the WCA with respect to workers' compensation benefits for unauthorized aliens. Our concern presently is whether an award of workers' compensation benefits to an unauthorized alien runs counter to federal immigration policy, to which Pennsylvania's legislative scheme should defer.

. That was not true under the INA regime, which had no “provisions . .. making it unlawful for an employer to hire an alien who is present or working in the United States without appropriate authorization." Sum-Tan, 467 U.S. at 892-93, 104 S.Ct. at 2809.

. A secondary function of the workers' compensation system in Pennsylvania is to take the place of the tort system for injuries in the employer-employee arena; the exclusive remedy provisions of the WCA ensure this. See 77 P.S. § 481. It would be wrong to conclude, however, that Pennsylvania’s workers' compensation scheme is merely an administrative substitute for tort claims against an employer. The scope of the WCA imposes much broader financial responsibility on an employer for an employee's work-related injury — providing benefits irrespective of the employer's fault — than the tort system, with its requirement that liability result from negligence.

. That does not leave unauthorized aliens who are injured by the employer’s negligence without recourse. If an unauthorized alien is ineligible for benefits under the WCA, it follows that the employer should not enjoy the immunity from suit granted by 77 P.S. § 481. Consequently, the injured worker returns to the protections of the tort system, and may sue the employer for injuries caused by the negligence of the employer.