Illegal Alien sues employer for giving him a job



Associated Press
May 28, 2008

STOCKTON, California -- An illegal alien from Mexico, Leo Hernandez, has sued his employer, Delta Laundry Mat, after being fired by the coin-operated laundromat.

Flo and Nilda Meneses, an elderly retired couple who legally immigrated from the Phillipines decades ago, invested their life savings when they purchased the Stockton, California Delta Laundry Mat for $250,000 just over a year ago.

The new business owners were quickly solicited for a job by Leo Hernandez, who would show up at the laundromat everyday and repeatedly insist that the Meneses hire him immediately as he implored in Spanish, "necessito trabajo." Hernandez, through his various translators, would accost and capriciously beg the Meneses for a job at the coin-laundry as he voluntarily washed the laundromat windows with discarded newspapers on his own accord without any offer or request from the business owners.

Eventually, the laundromat owners succumbed to the incessant "necessito trabajo" pronouncements and harassment from Hernandez, as they felt sorry for his economic plight and self-made situation in life.

Low and behold, after working as a janitor in the laundromat for a while, Hernandez began spending the night at the coin-operated business and started up his own "business within a business" by offering the laundromat's customers a "fluff and fold" service which would net him around $100+ cash a day.

Interestingly, while Hernandez was overtly insistent and aggressively pushy towards the senior citizen business owners that they hire him immediately, he was rather tight-lipped and deceptive about his other activities inside the coin-laundry. The business owners never authorized Hernandez to spend the night at the laundromat, or begin "living" at the laundromat, nor did they authorize Hernandez to begin running his own "fluff and fold" side-business within their business.

Upon learning of Hernandez' fraud and deception exercised while on the clock at his janitorial job at the coin-laundry, the owners fired him for his underhanded behavior and general malfeasance.

Hernandez may be an illegal alien who cannot speak English, but he has hired Stockton lawyers who do speak and write English as his representatives in his lawsuit against the laundromat.

According to the complaint filed last year in Stockton Superior Court, Hernandez is suing the business owners for not paying him overtime, not giving him lunch breaks, not paying tax contributions in the form of FICA, Social Security, Medicare, and Unemployment Insurance, not paying Hernandez in full at the moment of his actual termination, and all of Hernandez' attorneys fees and costs in suing the laundromat owners.

The trial begins on June 23rd in Stockton Superior Court.

The case is Leo Hernandez VS Flo Meneses. et al

The case number is CV032846

Allan F. Jose of Jose & Barrera LLP (Stockton) filed the lawsuit on behalf of Leo Hernandez.

Susana R. Chung LLP (Los Angeles) is defending Flo & Nilda Meneses and Delta Laundry Mat.