A federal judge should declare a new Washington state workers compensation law constitutional and block a jury trial in a lawsuit brought by the Department of Justice, the state wrote in a Friday court filing.
The Justice Department has sued the state in the U.S. District Court for Eastern Washington, arguing that the law, enacted in June, violates the Supremacy Clause by attempting to regulate the federal government, and by discriminating against the federal government by holding it to a different standard than others.
The Department of Justice filed a motion for summary judgement in March, asking U.S. Judge Stanley Bastian to declare the law unconstitutional. Washington state’s Friday filing was a counterclaim for summary judgment.
Bastian set a hearing on the motions for May 8. The judge could end the lawsuit then by upholding the state law as constitutional, or by overturning the state law as unconstitutional. Alternatively, Bastian could send the suit to trial.
Washington state wrote Friday that the new law is constitutional, and that Congress gave states the authority to apply their workers’ compensation laws to protect employees of federal contractors.
Under the new state law, certain Hanford contractors and subcontractors no longer have to prove that certain illnesses or injuries were caused by exposure to conditions at the former plutonium production complex.
Instead, the Washington Department of Labor and Industries, which rules on claims, must presume that neurological illnesses, respiratory illnesses, many types of cancer and some additional illnesses are caused by working at Hanford. Workers qualify for the presumption if they spend a single eight-hour shift at a Hanford work area.
The federal government says that finding evidence of the source of illnesses, some of which presented decades ago, could be difficult.
