Day laborer suit is settled

Day laborers reached a tentative settlement with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department in an unusual harassment lawsuit in which workers took their case to federal court, an attorney said Tuesday.

The deal was reached Monday night just hours before the trial was supposed to start, said lawyer Hector Villagra, director of the Orange County office of the American Civil Liberties Union, which represents the laborers.

He declined to provide details of the agreement.

The suit was filed by more than 50 dayworkers who alleged that deputies had violated their right to free speech by telling them that they could not seek work on a street corner in Lake Forest. Workers also alleged that deputies pulled over employers and told workers to get out of their vehicles.

In court papers, deputies said they were responding to residents’ complaints that workers were littering and trespassing. S. Frank Harrell, an attorney for the deputies, was unavailable for comment.

The National Day Labor Organizing Network said the only other case in which workers took police to federal court alleging harassment was in the New York suburb of Mamaroneck in 2006.

In that case, a judge ruled in favor of the workers.

Day laborers often have found themselves in the spotlight of the immigration debate as a tiny but visible faction of the country’s undocumented workforce.

About three-quarters of dayworkers are illegal immigrants, but less than 1% of the country’s estimated 12 million illegal immigrants are day laborers, according to a UCLA survey published in 2006.

During the last few years, a number of cities have sought to limit the activities of day laborers, but courts have upheld their right to seek jobs on public sidewalks.

Laguna Beach have set up hiring centers. The Los Angeles City Council last week passed an ordinance allowing the city to require some home improvement stores to make space for them.