ILLEGAL ALIENS HAVE HUMAN RIGHT TO WAGES & CONTRACT(S)

March 23, 2011: District of Massachusetts issued an order in Lin v. Chinatown Restaurant Corp. denying the defendants' motion to compel the plaintiffs to respond to written discovery about their immigration status and in so doing asserted that the status of the Plaintiffs under the immigration act was irrelevant.  

The Court held that the status of the Plaintiffs was irrelevant under the cited case, the 2002 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Hoffman Plastic Compounds, Inc. v. NLRB  because that case concerned the National Labor Relations Act and not the Fair Labor Standards Act because the adjudication of an FLSA cause of action does not call upon the court to make a discretionary policy-or interest-balancing assessment.  Basically the holding upholds an aliens right to pursue damages for wrong done and does not allow that right to be trumped by status:  Fair and Balanced trumps conniving and inequity.