Rivera

dissenting from the denial of rehearing en banc:

The panel’s decision allows a plaintiff who claims that racially discriminatory firing caused backpay and frontpay lost wages, to refuse to answer deposition questions touching on her place of birth and immigration status.

Thus, the panel’s decision impedes the ascertainment of the truth in advance of trial, thereby profoundly subverting the purposes of liberal Discovery in civil cases. The decision also frustrates the purposes of national Immigration policy: to limit employment benefits to American citizens and foreign persons authorized to work in this country.

It may be tempting to increase the settlement value or the award of a minority worker’s racial discrimination lawsuit by allowing her to include claimed lost wages and bar questioning of her immigration status. After all, the employer hired her and benefited from her labor. While she was working, the employer did not dig too deep into whether her papers were in order. Now that she asserts her civil rights against the employer’s claimed discriminatory firing, the employer gets righteous, and for all the wrong reasons.

If estoppel by the employer’s acts could bar…

dissenting from the denial of rehearing en banc:

ORDER

Judges Reinhardt, Siler and Hawkins voted to deny the petition for rehearing. Judges Reinhardt and Hawkins voted to *823 deny the petition for rehearing en banc and Judge Siler so recommended.

The full court was advised of the petition for rehearing en banc. A judge requested a vote on whether to rehear the matter en banc. The matter failed to receive a majority of the votes of the nonrecused active judges in favor of en bane reconsideration. Fed. R. App. P. 35.

The petitions for rehearing and rehearing en bane are denied.