The US Supreme Court unanimously overturned a Washington state workers’ compensation law designed for federal contractors working at a nuclear waste site, rejecting arguments that the challenge is moot because of a new measure the legislature passed while the dispute was pending.
There are open questions about the impact of the new law, including whether it will prevent the federal government from recouping or avoiding paying as much as $37 million in compensation claims awarded under the earlier law at issue in the case, the justices said Tuesday.
“It is thus not ‘impossible’ that the United States will recover money if we rule in its favor, and this case is not moot,” Justice Stephen Breyer wrote for the court.
The decision overturns a US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruling that upheld the law despite Washington’s argument that its new workers’ compensation law made the dispute moot.
The case centers around cleanup work at the decomissioned Hanford site, which produced weapons-grade plutonium for use in the US nuclear program during World War II and the Cold War. Cleanup is expected to continue over the next six decades and involve more than 10,000 workers.
Federal contractors do most of the cleanup work, while some of it is handled by private contractors, state employees, and federal workers.
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