Trash firm fights immigrant death claim

[AlphaCentauri]

Source: UPI


A garbage disposal company is fighting a Houston worker's wrongful death judgment on the grounds he would have been deported.

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. After his death, the company learned that he faked his paperwork and used another person's Social Security number to gain employment, the Houston Chronicle reported.

After a jury awarded the Gomez family more than $1.4 million in a wrongful death lawsuit, 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.





Read more: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2011/01/31/Trash-firm-fights-immigrant-death-claim/UPI-90071296490760/

[CC]

1. If Oscar played the lottery he

could have won the next week so maybe they should pay his family based on the chance he could of won millions in the future. What a bs excuse to get out of paying. Good the appellate court agreed.
Since the company was raided I hope they got hit with a hefty fine for not doing the minimum required on checking if a person is legal. Had they done that they would have know the SS# was false/stolen.

[alcina]

2. Republic Waste is in good company

Years ago, a friend of mine worked in Libya. While driving for the company one day, he was hit broadside by a drunk driver. A Libyan. My friend was badly injured, but the Libyan was killed. My friend had to be smuggled out of the country to avoid prosecution, which would have inevitably led to a conviction, as the government claimed his "foreign presence" was the cause of the accident: Had he not been there, the drunk driver would not have hit anything and thus would not have died. Maybe *that's* the argument Republic should make.

[saras]

3. Deported, killed, what's the difference? It's OUR money!