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.
In the brief, the Washington attorney general calls Hanford a “uniquely dangerous” workplace teaming with radioactive and chemical hazards. The private companies charged with cleaning up the property for the federal government have over the years failed to protect the health of workers or even properly track employee exposure to contamination, according to the document.
Ferguson’s office goes on to argue that the Justice Department request fails to provide the usual standards for Supreme Court review such as a disagreement among federal appeals courts.
“The petition’s claims of financial harm are also overblown,” according to the state brief. “Since the law took effect, workers’ compensation claims at Hanford have actually declined, and there has been no meaningful increase in costs to the federal government.”
The Supreme Court is an independent branch of the federal government.
