The Associated Press

  PHOENIX - Court rulings that employees can receive benefits for on-the-job injuries even if they are illegal immigrants will be allowed to stand.

  The state Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal from a business that had argued that federal laws against illegal immigration and the hiring of illegal immigrants
  pre-empt Arizona laws that make all workers - legal or not - eligible for workers' compensation.

  The high court's order, announced yesterday, was issued without comment.

  The action comes amid political and legal grappling in Arizona over services for immigrants, including an Aug. 21 ruling by the Supreme Court that the state may be
  responsible for the costs of caring for indigent immigrants even after they have been moved out of acute-care wards.

  In the workers' compensation case, the state Court of Appeals ruled May 29 that Fermin Torres was eligible for coverage for eye and cheek injuries suffered in a 2001
  accident during his first week of work at Tiger Transmissions, a Lee Myles Transmission Shops franchisee.

  Tiger said Torres' inability to work legally in the United States precluded him from receiving workers' compensation benefits.

  The business cited a 1986 federal immigration law and a 2002 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that barred a federal agency from awarding back pay to an illegal immigrant
  who had been laid off while doing union organizing.

  If allowed to stand, an administrative law judge's ruling in favor of Torres "condones and encourages further violations of federal immigration law and policy," the
  business argued.

  The Court of Appeals upheld the judge and said the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling didn't apply to workers' compensation benefits.

  Also, disqualifying migrant workers from workers' compensation benefits would create an incentive for a business to hire them, "knowing that it would not be
  responsible for their injuries," Judge Cecil B. Patterson Jr. wrote for a three-judge panel.

  In addition, the appellate judges said Tiger violated federal immigration law by not verifying Torres' immigration status.