In Texas, a waste disposal company is fighting a Houston worker’s wrongful death judgment on the grounds he would have been deported. It seems that Oscar Alfredo Gomez, 21, an illegal immigrant from El Salvador, was run over by a garbage truck driven by another Republic Waste Services employee four years ago. Now after his death, the company learned that Gomez faked his papers, and even used another person’s social security number to gain employment.
The jury then awarded the Gomez family, $1.4 million, in a wrongful death suit. in whcih Republic appealed, contending Gomez probably would have been deported in a raid of its office two weeks after his death. It argued the compensation should be based on his projected future wages in El Salvador — a mere $1,000 annually — rather than his U.S. earnings of $33,000.
An appellate court rejected that argument Jan. 20, ruling the trial court was right to exclude evidence about Gomez’s immigration status.
“We believe this is a landmark decision because if undocumented workers are working and they get injured or killed, they deserve the same rights as anyone else,” said Houston attorney Benny Agosto Jr., who represented the Gomez family. Upi
Should the family of the illegal receive the money, when knowingly, they knew he was in this country illegally?
