Plaintiff’s class action lawyers have been making progress lately on theories of this sort, which doesn’t thrill Tom Veal at Stromata (Jan. 3). More: PoL Jul. 17, 2005, Jul. 12, 2004; this site Dec. 13-14, 2001.
More: the Supreme Court has agreed to review carpetmaker Mohawk Industries’ claim that it shouldn’t have to face a hiring-aliens-as-racketeering lawsuit (see PoL Jul. 12, 2004)(Meredith Hobbs, “High Court Will Hear Mohawk’s Bid to Toss RICO Suit by Employee”, Fulton County Daily Report, Dec. 20).
3 Comments
Interesting Post on the Increasing Use of RICO in Illegal Hire Cases
Overlawyered has the details here (through the Stromata blog). Tom Veal, over at Stromata, is concerned that RICO is being used in employment cases in ways that it was never intended to be used. He asserts:There’s nothing wrong, needless to
This is a RARE instance in which I find myself gleeful about the activities of plaintiff’s counsel. The better solution would of course be effective enforcement of our immigration laws, including heavy penalties for employers who hire illegals. But the political establishment is asleep on the job on the issue of illegals, and when there’s money to be made, guess who’ll step in.
I am torn on this topic.
On the one hand, it’s certainly appalling to see the system used like this…
Yet, on the other, since the system is used like this all the time on really BAD things, it might as well be used like this to do something GOOD as well. Not the best way to handle it, but better than nothing, which is what we’re getting from the government right now…