PORTLAND – The former owner of the DeCoster Egg Farms in Turner wants out of a $6 million settlement with former workers because he fears he would not be protected from future lawsuits.

A lawyer for Austin J. DeCoster on Tuesday asked a federal judge to reject the agreement reached last year with representatives of Mexican workers.

“It’s not what Mr. DeCoster intended to do when he settled the case for $6 million,” William Knowles told U.S. District Judge D. Brock Hornby.

Five years ago, federal investigators reported that conditions at DeCoster’s farm were as bad as any workplace in America.

They found workers sent to clean up dead birds and chicken dung without protective clothing; four families crammed into trailers built for one; and toilets backed up with sewage.

Since then, DeCoster has spent millions to make the barns into cleaner and safer places to work and paid millions to the federal government in fines for health and safety violations. But the approximately 800 Mexican workers who withstood those conditions have never been compensated directly.

In the years it has taken for this case to make its way through the courts, the statute of limitations has expired for many of their complaints and they have lost their ability to sue DeCoster directly.

Therefore, the settlement is their only chance, said Ben Guiliani, an advocate for Maine’s migrant agricultural workers.

“Those statutes of limitations are running,” he said. “If the judge was to rule against this settlement it will be a gross miscarriage of justice.”

The settlement was reached in February 2000 after a daylong negotiating session mediated by former New Hampshire Sen. Warren Rudman. Hornby then dismissed part of the case against DeCoster related to charges of fraud and breach of contract. The judge allowed the discrimination portion to proceed.

Knowles said DeCoster could settle the discrimination lawsuit and then be sued again for the other parts of the lawsuit that were dismissed without a full hearing before the judge.

Harold Friedman, who represents the workers, said DeCoster is just trying to back out of a deal.

“It’s just another effort to dodge a bullet,” he said. “This defendant has a track record of trying to get out of everything.”

Hornby said he would make a ruling later. Both sides said they likely would appeal his decision if they lose. DeCoster, who lives in Iowa, did not attend the hearing and neither did any of the plaintiffs.

DeCoster’s farm has a 20-year history of health and labor violations, which made national news in 1997 when then-Labor Secretary Robert Reich said conditions were as bad as any sweatshop he had ever seen.

The federal government fined DeCoster $3.6 million, which led to a boycott of the farm’s eggs that is still in effect today.

The lawsuit named Austin J. DeCoster, Maine Ag and Quality Egg of New England. DeCoster owned DeCoster Egg Farm until 1997, when it was broken up into Maine Ag, Quality Egg and several other companies.