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Bill targets businesses that employ illegals

HB 1082 seeks to make them liable for workers' actions

Lynn Bartels, Rocky Mountain News

Published January 14, 2006 at midnight

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The legislature's top two Republicans want employers held liable for their workers' bad behavior if the staffers are illegal immigrants.

Under a bill introduced Friday, employers could be sued even if a worker's wrongful actions occurred off-duty.

Examples of such behavior include car accidents or assaults.

Critics denounced House Bill 1082, saying it is anti-business and unconstitutional. But the chief sponsor, House Minority Leader Joe Stengel, R-Littleton, said his proposal is "100 percent pro-business."

"The guys who are doing things right - paying insurance, unemployment, workers compensation - are subsidizing these guys who are bad for business, doing things under the table.

"There's a huge underground economy; it's a cash economy and these guys are exploiting these undocumented workers."

Rep. Mike Cerbo, D-Denver, an attorney and labor activist, said he was stunned when he read the bill.

"It sounds almost feudal, like something back in the 13th century," he said.

Said Sen. Jennifer Veiga, D-Denver, who also is an attorney: "The party that is anti-trial lawyer wants to open up a floodgate of claims?"

The measure, which also is sponsored by Senate Minority Leader Andy McElhany of Colorado Springs, likely will stall in the Democratic-controlled legislature.

But it signals how much of this year's session will revolve around illegal immigration.

The bill states that employers who do not verify citizenship status of their workers "encourage illegal entry."

As such, the bill says, "the employer owes a duty of care to the residents of Colorado for an unauthorized alien's tortious acts or omissions whether they take place within or outside of the scope of employment."

Some Capitol observers say the bill appears to be aimed at embarrassing Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, a Democrat.

An illegal immigrant working as a dishwasher at a restaurant Hickenlooper co-owns is accused of killing an off-duty police officer during a party last May. The worker used fraudulent documents to get the job.

"For the record, it's not a Hickenlooper bill," Stengel said. "Those guys (at the restaurant) did their best to document that their workers were legal."

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