Maurice ‘Mo’ Jourdane, California lawyer who fought for farmworkers, dies at 83
Maurice “Mo” Jourdane, the California attorney who led a long legal fight to ban the short-handled hoe, or el cortito, improving the lives of farmworkers across the state, died Saturday. He was 83.
Jourdane spent his life championing the causes he believed in, such as safe conditions for workers, voting rights and standing up for the oppressed, his family said.
“It’s fitting that he died on Labor Day weekend, … a weekend to give homage to workers,” his son, Jonathan Julio Jourdane, said. “He always made sure to remind us that if we see someone getting harmed, we do something about it. And he didn’t just say that, that’s how he lived his life.”
Jourdane died at his San Diego home after a two-year battle with cancer, according to his family.
He took up the case against the short-handled hoe — which many laborers at the time called el brazo del Diablo, or the devil’s arm — in 1969, according to a historian’s account of the case, after spending a day toiling in the field with the tool himself and feeling extreme back pain “after just a couple hours.” The tool required farmworkers to bend down over rows of crops given its short length, a task they often had to do for hours. The United Farm Workers said the work caused “crippling back [pain] and skeletal injuries.”
It took several years for Jourdane to reach a favorable outcome in the case, but in 1975, the California Supreme Court ruled that the short-handled hoe was a violation of state safety standards, according to a 2025 column published in newspapers across the state that marked the 50th anniversary of the ruling. The piece called the case a breakthrough that “represented a new era in the farmworker rights movement.”
Jourdane went on to work in the California Office of the Attorney General, as a Superior Court judge in Monterey County and in the California Court of Appeal’s Fourth District, his family said. He most recently had published three books, including one about his fight to ensure the health and safety of farmworkers.
He was a devoted husband, father and grandfather, and friend to many, his family said. His survivors include his wife of 42 years, two children and one granddaughter.
“He was just an incredible, kind, loving, caring person,” said his wife Olivia Flores Jourdane. “He modeled what he believed in: that everyone had a right to a good life, to justice, to love… things happen, but you get back up and try again.”
Before a near-fatal car crash in the late 1970s, in which he lost one eye and suffered severe facial trauma, he had loved surfing. But after losing much of his depth perception, he traded that passion for running, completing 79 marathons, his family said.
“Even though he couldn’t see and there were things he couldn’t do, there were other things he could do,” said his daughter, Jacquelyn Flores Jourdane. She called him “a fantastic attorney, a wonderful dad,” who had a unique “ability to overcome adverse challenges.”
In 2014, he was honored by student leaders and activists in San Diego at a Cesar Chavez Service Clubs breakfast, showing up with a cortito in his hand, according to a story in the San Diego Union-Tribune.
“Nothing is going to make things better if you don’t believe things are going to get better,” Jourdane told hundreds of students at the event. “It’s an honor that so many students in San Diego are continuing the cause.”