Court Opinion

ID: 9884007
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-10-06 02:30:50.455142+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:48:34.333013
License: Public Domain

GILBERT, Justice
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent from the majority opinion and would reverse the decision of the WCCA. The majority’s holding ignores important federal immigration requirements by creating a legal fiction of a diligent job search that is contrary to federal law. The IRCA explicitly prohibits the employment of unauthorized aliens. 8 U.S.C. § 1324a(a)(l) (2000) (providing that it is unlawful to knowingly hire an unauthorized alien); 8 U.S.C. § 1324a(a)(2) (2000) (declaring that it is unlawful for an employer to knowingly continue to employ an unauthorized alien). Accordingly, contrary to the majority opinion and the WCCA’s conclusion, an unauthorized alien is incapable of conducting a diligent job search to receive temporary total disability benefits as required by Minn.Stat. § 176.101, subd. 1(g) (2002). Johnson v. State Dept. of Veterans Affairs, 400 N.W.2d 729, 731 (Minn.1987) (stating that an employee who fails to conduct a diligent search may be denied disability compensation).
Such a job search would violate federal law. There are criminal penalties for unauthorized aliens who use fraudulent documents to satisfy the requirements of the IRCA. 8 U.S.C. § 1324e(e) (2000). It is illegal for an employer to knowingly hire an unauthorized alien or knowingly employ *332an unauthorized alien. 8 U.S.C. § 1324a(a)(l) and (a)(2). A job search that can never result in legal employment fails to satisfy the Minnesota Workers’ Compensation Act’s diligent job search requirement. The majority opinion uses a circular argument and ignores some of the circumstances of immigration status that make it legally impossible for Correa to conduct a diligent job search. The Act conditions further temporary total disability payments on such a search and that condition has not been met in fact or in law.
Moreover, the policy considerations articulated in Hoffman Plastic Compounds, Inc. v. NLRB, 535 U.S. 137, 122 S.Ct. 1275, 152 L.Ed.2d 271 (2002), are applicable here. As the United States Supreme Court recognized, Correa cannot conduct a diligent job search “without triggering new IRCA violations, either by tendering false documents to employers or by finding employers willing to ignore IRCA and hire illegal workers.” Id. at 150-51, 122 S.Ct. 1275. In addition, awarding Correa continuing temporary total disability benefits predicated on a diligent job search would reward him for remaining in the United States illegally and encourage him to violate the IRCA by finding further employment. This result “trivializes” the immigrations laws. Id. at 150, 122 S.Ct. 1275. In support of its holding, the majority adopts the rationale of the dissent in Hoffman. However, the dissent did not carry the day in Hoffman. We should not disregard the law of the land as articulated by the Hoffman majority and elevate the dissent over the majority opinion to reach a desired result in this case.
Furthermore, awarding Correa these wage loss benefits would expose Way-mouth Farms to higher workers’ compensation liability, thereby penalizing Way-mouth Farms for obeying federal law by terminating Correa. Finally, the majority’s holding elevates the rights of unauthorized aliens over those of documented employees. Unauthorized aliens released to return to work are unable to accept jobs that documented workers with similar injuries would be required to accept.1 Awarding unauthorized aliens continuing temporary disability benefits not conditioned on working or making a diligent job search not only violates the requirements of the Workers’ Compensation Act, it also unjustly requires employers to pay benefits to unauthorized aliens that they would not have to pay to documented workers with similar injuries.
For the above reasons, I would hold as a matter of law that the unauthorized alien’s illegal status prevents the alien from conducting a diligent job search because any job search would be based on fraud and deception as to immigration status. This court should not condone this legal fiction by interpreting the Act and the IRCA in isolation and awarding temporary total disability benefits in disregard of the common sense requirements of the Act. Congress and our legislature are better suited than our court to deal with this important but strictly policy issue.

. Correa has received temporary total disability benefits and Waymouth Farms is not challenging Correa's entitlement to receive permanent partial disability benefits upon termination of his temporary total disability eligibility. The only benefits in issue are temporary benefits contingent on a reasonable job search after the respondent was released to work with restrictions.