A Latino beaten by a security guard is granted $58 million in California
LOS ÁNGELES. A Torrance County jury in Los Angeles, CA granted a compensation of almost $58 million dollars to a Latino that was beaten by a security guard and that as a result was permanently incapacitated, said his lawyers this past Monday.
Guatemalan Antonio López Chaj’s lawyers declared that their client has permanent brain damage and a deformed cranium from a beaten by a security guard on April 29, 2010.
López Chaj, who will not be able to speak, walk or look after himself, was represented by Fernando Chávez, one of the sons of the late peasant’s leader César Chávez, and by Federico C. Sayre.
Sayre represented Afro American Rodney King in his suit against the LAPD due to the beating that police officers dealt him in 1991. The beating was taped and sparked the worst racial riots in the city’s history.
Compensation for López Chaj was granted by a Torrance county jury last Friday in a trial presided by Judge Dudley Gray II against defendant DGSP and Patrol Services, a private security company.
According to Chávez, López Chaj, his brother and two nephews had been drinking in a Los Angeles bar on 8th Street on Catalina.
When one of them asked for another drink the bartender refused, insulted one of López Chaj’s nephews in Spanish and began beating him over the head with brass knuckles until he was unconscious.
Emerson Quintanilla, the DGSP and Patrol Services guard, ran in and began kicking and beating the nephew. When Antonio López Chaj tried to intervene and calm things down, the guard flew into a rage, said Chavez. The security guard hit Antonio several times with his club and dragged him out from the bar.
According to independent witnesses, the guard kicked Antonio several times in the head and crashed the back of his head four times against the pavement.
López Chaj, a house painter that sent money to his wife and two minor sons in Guatemala suffered brain damage that put his life at risk. Doctors and the county’s USC Medical Center removed part of his brain and cranium, leaving his head severely deformed. López Chaj remained several weeks in the hospital and another 18 months in a specialized center.
The case was based on the fact that DGSP Security never checked that the security guard they employed had a license or training. “The guy should never have been hired or been there that night,” said Sayre.
Chávez remarked that after the verdict was announced the jury told him that it had been based on the evidence presented, the severity of the lesions and on what they thought was fair and reasonable compensation.
(Notimex)
