Injured worker heads home as claim proceeds
December 11, 2007
Attorneys for injured immigrant Edgar Velasquez have vowed to fight for his return from Mexico after being deported immediately prior to his workers compensation hearing. Velasquez’s claim stems from an accident in which his face was slashed open with a chainsaw while working for a Warwick based tree service.
Velásquez’s lawyers allege that William J. Gorman Jr. arranged to have Velásquez deported last year before he could pursue a workers compensation claim against Gorman, owner of Billy G’s Tree Care in Warwick.
According to Velasquez’s lawyer Stephen J. Dennis of Providence, Gorman “tossed [Velasquez] out as damaged goods.”
In an unusual move, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security issued an exception in Velasquez’s case, approving his return in September to attend his workers’ compensation hearing.
Velazquez received a horrifying wound while working for Gorman when a chainsaw he was using “bounced off a post and struck him in the face”. The Providence Journal reported that the “saw flayed his forehead to the bone; and sliced through his left eyelid and his nose.”
According to Velasquez, Gorman never provided any training or protective gear. Gorman is also thought to be behind Velasquez’s arrest and deportation on the morning in August 2006 when he was to appear at his workers’ compensation hearing. Instead, he was arrested by immigration agents and deported while Gorman watched and taunted him from a distance.
Now it is Gorman who will have to pay. The court ordered Gorman to pay medical expenses and lost wages to Velasquez, who returned to Mexico after the ruling.
Source: The Providence Journal
December 11, 2007
(emphasis added)
