A lawyer’s duty to zealously represent a client does not extend to having your client's litigious employee deported.
So ruled the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals yesterday.
Meet Jose Arnulfo Arias, an immigrant who filed a lawsuit against his employer for wage violations.
Meet the attorney, Anthony Raimondo of Raimondo & Associates, who represented Arias’ former employer, Angelo Dairy, in a wage-and-hour lawsuit.
During that lawsuit, Raimondo had arranged for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to take Arias into custody at a scheduled deposition and then remove him from the country.
The ruling yesterday determined that “employer” is defined as “any person acting directly or indirectly” in an employer’s interest in relation to an employee.
The ruling paves the way for Arias’s retaliation lawsuit. Wage and hour laws prohibit employers from retaliating against employees for lawsuits for redress.
The back story? When Arias found out about Raimondo’s contact with ICE, he allegedly suffered “extreme anxiety” over worries that he would be deported, and agreed to settle.
Now, the company’s lawyer is on the hook; and likely, will go to trial or settle with Arias.
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