Articles Posted in Farmworker Injuries

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Photo above: Me putting a  farmworker injury case into storage.

I am one of the only personal injury lawyers in Upstate New York (Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo) who speaks fluent Spanish. I’m also married to a Guatemalan and move comfortably in the Latino community here. It’s no wonder, then, that over my 30 years or so of representing personal injury victims in Upstate, many of my clients have been “undocumented” Mexicans and Central Americans.

If you are a personal injury lawyer seeking to represent an undocumented Spanish speaking immigrant, here is what you need to know:

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Happy New Year’s readers!   In my last blog I talked about my New Year’s plan to volunteer on a week-long assignment in an immigrant detention center near the Texas-Mexico border. I was to help asylum seekers advance their claims.  Not really in my wheelhouse, since I am a New York personal injury lawyer.  But I speak Spanish, and am married to a Guatemalan, and wanted to help out with all the Central Americans claiming asylum on our border right now.  I am writing now to report that my efforts were successful.  Here is an article by a reporter at the Finger Lakes Times about my journey.  Thanks for reading!

Mike Bersani

BORDERLINE: PART II: Freedom fighter

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Just in case you were wondering (and I’m sure you were), the photo on the left is what eleven years of litigation looks like.  I have blogged about this case before:  It took me eleven and a half years to finally get justice for nine Guatemalan and Mexican migrant farm workers who were injured in a big explosion in upstate New York.

The picture on the right was taken in a hotel in Guatemala where I brought the men to sign settlement papers and open bank accounts.

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I tend to get a lot of immigrant and Spanish speaking clients.  Could be because I speak fluent Spanish and am married to a Guatemalan.  I hope it is also because word spreads in the immigrant community that I get good results.

Anyway, the guy standing with me in the photo above is from Nicaragua.  One day as he was riding his bicycle to work (on the shoulder of the road, just as he was supposed to) near Rochester, NY, a car swiped him from behind and never bothered stopping.  We call that a hit and run.  The next thing he remembers is waking up all bloodied in a ditch, with a piece of broken car mirror next to him.

My Nicaraguan friend had bad injuries but also has a tough, fighting spirit.  He got back to work only five months after his accident so he could put food on the table for his wife and two children. Hard working Nicaraguan immigrant! I admire him and all the other hard-working immigrants I have had the privilege of representing.

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As a New York personal injury lawyer, my job is to fight my hardest on behalf of each and every one of my clients.  And so I do.  But I would be lying if I said I liked all my clients to the same degree.  Just like teachers have their “pets”, lawyers have their favorite clients.  You are looking at some of my favorite clients ever in the photos above.

The seven men shown in these photos all came into the USA illegally and worked here illegally, too.  Some of you who are reading this will now instantly dislike them.  Please don’t.  Please forgive them for breaking a few rules.  They are not criminals, rapists or murderers (as some politicians will have you believe).  They are simple peasants with only second or third grade educations who needed to support their families back home in Guatemala and Mexico.

Once here, they worked brutally long and hard hours in upstate New York’s vegetable fields from spring to summer, and then in Florida’s orange groves in winter.  They were sending almost every penny they earned back home to feed small hungry mouths.

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I’m posting this blog from my hotel here in Guatemala City where I am hanging out with my two clients, Hugo and Lucio, shown in the photo with me. You guessed it, I’m the tall one.

I already blogged about why this Central NY injury lawyer had to come all the way to Guatemala to take their testimony. Today’s blog is about how much I admire these guys. Why? They are outstanding fathers.

Several years ago they realized the three dollars a day they were earning working the corn fields in their pueblo wasn’t ever going to fill the hungry little mouths at home. So they did something about it. They “went north”, as they call the trek to the United States around here.

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Next Tuesday I’ll be jumping on a plane to Central America. But I won’t be on vacation. I’ll be representing my Guatemalan clients as they get deposed, remotely, by video, from Syracuse, NY. There’ll be an interpreter with us.

How did I end up in Guatemala on a case? That story made the front page of the New York Law Journal and the Syracuse Post Standard. I blogged about that here.

Technology has changed every aspect of law practice. A few decades ago, what is about to transpire would have been impossible. Your Central NY injury lawyer will be sitting next to his clients in Guatemala City while insurance defense lawyers in Syracuse New York ask them questions by video. We will see those lawyers on the screen, and they will see my clients. They will be face to face. It’s kind of like Star Trek. “Beam me up, Scotty”! The video of my clients will later be presented to the jury.

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I represent many “illegal” immigrant farm workers in their personal injury claims. Why?

First, I speak fluent Spanish. I am married to a Guatemalan. We speak Spanish at home with our children. It is only natural that injured Spanish speakers in Central New York would seek out the only Spanish speaking injury lawyer in all central New York counties, including Onondaga, Seneca, Oswego, Ontario, Tioga, Orleans, Wayne and Jefferson Counties. And all these counties have an abundance of Mexican and Guatemalan farm workers tending to our apple orchards, grape vineyards and onion fields.

Second, about one half of all Mexican and Guatemalan farm workers in this area are “illegal”. Actually, I prefer the term “undocumented” immigrants to “illegal”. No person is “illegal”. Crossing the border without legal permission to do so is not a crime, nor is working or living here without legal permission. These are considered civil violations, not criminal ones. That is why when an undocumented immigrant is apprehended, he is not tried for a crime or given a prison sentence. Instead he is merely deported or “removed”, which means he is sent back to his country.

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