Does immigration status when making a car accident or Workers’ compensation claim? In this video, Personal Injury Attorney Ben Schwartz, along with Client Intake Coordinator David Fontanz explains to viewers the answer.

Hey folks I’m Attorney Ben Schwartz,

Today I have got David Fontanez with me. David is one of the intake coordinators, and one of the client service team members, on the clients’ service teams at my Law Firm, Schwartz and Schwartz.

David speaks on the phone and greets people in person all day every day, Monday through Friday, even sometimes on the weekends too, in the law firm. And he gets lots of questions from people.  So today, I said to David, why don’t you come on the video with me and hit me with one of the questions? Ask me anything. Ask me one of the questions that you’ve gotten recently.

David says:
Thank you Ben! So being on the client services team, I speak to a lot of Spanish-speaking clients. A lot of clients that I speak to have so many questions pertaining to things that they may not understand from a language standpoint.

So, one of the questions that we have is, I am not a documented citizen of the United States, but I was injured at work, or I was injured in a motor vehicle accident, Do I still have options, does immigration status matter in filing a claim?

Ben says:
Yeah, I would say and you know I practiced law in Delaware, and the answer to this question is going to vary from state to state, because every state has a different law on this topic, and I cannot make generalizations.  What might be true in Delaware might not be true in Florida. What might be true in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania might not be true in Minnesota when dealing with immigration status.

But here is what I can tell you. Regardless of what the particular state law is, in the state where you got injured, I know one thing to be true. And that is if you go to your own attorney, not the insurance company’s attorney, not the employer’s attorney, you go to your own attorney.  That attorney, if they are licensed to practice law in any state in the United States of America, that attorney owes you a duty of confidentiality. This means they cannot call up the government and say hey guess who is going to be in my office at 11 am come pick them up.

I believe that most quality personal injury and workers’ comp attorneys can’t give, you know, free consultations to people who have been injured.  You can get a free consultation and it is confidential and you can find out what the answer is in the state where you live, in the state where you became injured in an accident, whether that be an auto accident or a work injury or what have you.

So I would say the answer to that question, I realize I am not answering the question directly but I would say the answer to that question, is you need to go to an attorney in the state where the accident happened and ask that question. And I believe that in most states if not all states, the attorney is going to tell you, don’t worry about it. We handle personal injury cases and workers’ comp claims all the time. The law makes provisions for folks whether they are here, you know with authority or without authority to be here.  The fact of the matter is,  immigration status matter you are working for the employer, you are in service to the employer, and you deserve to be protected.

If you go to an attorney, you do not have to call me, just call an attorney in the state where the accident happened. Get a free consultation find out what your legal rights are and find out how the attorney can protect you while also helping you make a claim for fair compensation.

I think that is an excellent question David and I know it is something that comes up very frequently. So, folks, this is David. He is on our client services team. I am Ben Schwartz. I am an attorney with the law firm Schwartz and Schwartz.

If you have a legal topic or a legal question and you would like to have it answered in video format like this, send me an email. My email address is ben.schwartz@schwartzandschwartz.com. If you prefer to email David that is cool too, in fact, I believe David’s first language is Spanish, so if you prefer to speak in Spanish, instead of sending me an email to me, send it to David. His email is david@schwartzandschwartz.com

Folks, Thanks for watching.