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Character witness?

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monnicamarie

Junior Member
What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Georgia
This isn't about me totally. An ex employee is suing the former company i worked for for defamation and workers comp wages. The thing is she worked under a false name and identity being an immigrant and then changed her name. I don't know why she wasn't fired but the personnel director told me to fill out paperwork alleging she was this new name and I assumed he was checking and verifying her immigration status. Evidentaly not. I filled out an i9 form for her. Now the former company, not her lawyer, wants to meet with me to verify that I filled out those forms. The defendant named me
As a character witness. I told her no but she did it anyways and I could be forced to go to court. Could I get in any trouble? I was only doing my job, I didn't have any authority verifying immigration status. She's fighting wages under her new name. This is crazy. Any advice please, I'm very scared!
 


commentator

Senior Member
If the second information you were given was valid, which it sounds like it probably was, I don't see how you could be in any trouble unless you didn't actually see any documentation papers required for the I-9, you just went on and filled it out. You always state that you've seen the two forms of Identification, did you actually see these? If the worker had them, and you used them, that's about all you could have done, seems to me. The worker's attorney was probably wanting you to testify that they did produce papers and that the company accepted the second papers. Now the company is throwing the HR person to the winds, and you are being asked to swear that you were ordered to do something the HR person knew was wrong. All you can do is tell the truth.

If a person is working under an assumed name or false identity and has an on the job injury, you still have Worker's Comp obligations to them, because regardless of the identity, they are a worker you had allowed on your job who is now injured in a work related injury. You can't just throw them out the door because their paperwork they are working under isn't good. So by allowing her to tell you her real identity and paperwork and your filling out the I-9 at the request of the employer, I don't see that you did anything wrong personally.

While the employer may strongly suspect that this Hispanic person named whose papers say she is named Brittany Spears is probably using questionable i.d., they have elected to go on and put this person to work. I bet they didn't use the E-Verify system to do it, either. And if the person is injured on the job, as I said, they still have to give the person worker's comp coverage. Else there would be even more incentive to hire illegals, because unlike legal workers, if they get hurt, you could make them away and have no trouble doing so. Companies would love this.
 

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