California: Court Affirms $2.9 Million Judgment Against Employer For Mishandling Immigration Case

In an unusual case in which a California court entered a $2.9 million judgment against a former employer who mishandled the green card application process of one of its employees, which resulted in the forced return of the employee and his family to England, a state appellate court held that the civil action against the employer was not barred, in whole or in part, by the exclusive remedy rule in spite of the employer's contention that most of the alleged damages amounted to the sort of physical and mental injuries covered by the California Act. The Court stressed that the employee's injuries arose from the improper handling of the immigration process; they did not arise out of and in the course of the employee's employment.

Thomas A. Robinson, J.D., the Feature National Columnist for the LexisNexis Workers’ Compensation eNewsletter, is co-author of Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law (LexisNexis).

LexisNexis Online Subscribers: Citations below link to Lexis 

See Reynaud v. Technicolor Creative Services USA, Inc., 2020 Cal. App. LEXIS 247 (2d App. Dist., Div. 2, Mar. 24, 2020)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 100.03.

Source: Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, the nation’s leading authority on workers’ compensation law

For a more detailed discussion of the case, see

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