As expected, the Washington state attorney general has filed formal arguments saying there is no need for the U.S. Supreme Court to revisit an appeals court ruling that backed a state law boosting workers’ compensation eligibility for Hanford Site employees with certain work-related illnesses.
State Attorney General Bob Ferguson filed his 45-page “brief in opposition” on Monday. The move is in reaction to the September filing by the Justice Department, under President Joe Biden, asking the high court to reconsider a Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling on Washington state House Bill 1723.
Gov. Jay Inslee (D) signed the measure, which included bipartisan support, into law in June 2018 and it was subsequently challenged in federal court by the Justice Department under then-President Donald Trump.
The law lowered the legal bar for Hanford workers to qualify for workers’ compensation connected with their tenure doing cleanup at the highly-contaminated site that made plutonium for the United States during the Cold War. The measure makes it easier for workers suffering from neurological problems, respiratory diseases and chronic beryllium disease to qualify for benefits.
“The petition for certiorari in this case seeks nothing more than factbound error correction where there is no error,” the state attorney general said in this week’s filing.
The Supreme Court is an independent branch of the federal government.
