Washington Attorney General Nick Brown accuses a Central Washington hop and apple grower of replacing local workers with foreign guest workers. (Courtesy Washington Attorney General's Office)

A Yakima County, Wash., apple and hop grower disputes claims by Washington Attorney General Nick Brown that the farm displaced domestic workers with foreign guest workers.

Brown filed a lawsuit June 20 in Yakima Superior Court accusing Cornerstone Ranches of discriminating against local workers based on their sex and immigration status by hiring more male workers in the country legally on H-2A visas.

“While we cannot comment in detail on pending litigation, we strongly dispute the claims made in the attorney general’s complaint,” Cornerstone owner Graham Gamache said in a statement.

“Women have consistently held, and currently hold, positions at Cornerstone at every level of operations from executive, administrative, management and general labor,” Gamache said. “The allegation that Cornerstone discriminated against women is particularly baseless and wildly irresponsible.”

Under the Washington Law Against Discrimination, it is an unfair practice for an employer to refuse to hire a person because of immigration status, according to the lawsuit.

“The H-2A program was never intended to be a back-door source of labor when there are qualified workers here in Washington eager to take on the jobs, but that’s exactly how Cornerstone used it,” Brown said in a statement.

The Toppenish-based farm occupies more than 1,200 acres in the Yakima Valley in Central Washington. The fifth-generation family farm produces one million pounds of hops and 30 million pounds of apples per year and employed more than 200 workers in 2023, according to the lawsuit.

Gamache said the farm has been hiring H-2A workers since 2015. The lawsuit names no victims of discrimination nor cites specific incidents.

Cornerstone was approved to hire nine H-2A workers in 2020. The following year the number increased to 28. The farm was approved to hire 62 H-2A workers in 2023, 2024 and 2025, according to the lawsuit.

While the number of H-2A workers increased, the farm’s use of domestic workers allegedly declined. Local workers performed 91% of the farm’s labor hours in 2021. The percentage dropped to 59% two years later, according to the lawsuit.

The complaint claims domestic workers were frequently sent home while H-2A workers continued working. Cornerstone advertised openings on state websites, but didn’t contact local workers who applied for work in-person at the farm’s office in Toppenish, the lawsuit claims.

Cornerstone also held domestic workers to productivity standards not applied to H-2A workers, the lawsuit alleges.

The lawsuit seeks unspecified fines, restitution, damages and “other appropriate monetary relief” to be determined at a trial.

Gamache said the H-2A program is hard to navigate and opens the farm to inspections by government agencies. But it’s allowed the farm to survive and raised wages for local workers.

“Given our experience with the H-2A program it would be inconsistent with our professional participation in the agricultural industry to act in the way the attorney general is accusing us,” he said.

In a similar case, King Fuji Ranch, which owns orchards in Mattawa and Othello, agreed in April to pay $180,000 to settle allegations by the attorney general’s office that it discriminated against local workers and replaced them with H-2A workers.