Construction Accidents: Mexican Family of Victim Seeks Compensation

The family members of a construction worker who was killed when a house collapsed at Chateau Elan have hired an Atlanta lawyer to fight for workers' compensation for them. 43-year-old Evaristo Enrique Chimal Librado had been working on a house on March 3 when the house collapsed on top of him. Librado was an undocumented alien from Mexico who sent his monthly $400 paycheck back to Mexico City to aid his wife, three children, and his mother. Librado's lawyer, L. Brown Bivens, says he does not believe that Librado's lack of citizenship will affect his eligibility for compensation. "I have to tell you," said Bivens, "I’ve never had a case where the injured party was here illegally, or an alien. My understanding of the law in the worker’s compensation arena, and in every other personal injury, is that it doesn’t matter where you are from.”

Mexican Family of Victim to Seek Compensation

Most builders only hire subcontractors who have workers' compensation insurance. Under Georgia law, a maximum workers' compensation claim would give the Librado family with two-thirds of Librado's salary for 400 weeks, or $125,000. It also would offer a $7,500 death benefit. Bivens says that the circumstances of the case might merit further legal action: "It interests me because I can't understand how an 80-percent complete house blows over in a 33 mile-per-hour wind."