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An attorney for a Mexican man who’s seeking lost future earnings for a workplace back injury told the Indiana Court of Appeals on Wednesday that his client should be allowed to pursue those wages at U.S. pay rates instead of rates in his home country.

Noe Escamilla, 29, sued Indianapolis construction company Shiel Sexton for lost future wages after he slipped on ice in December 2010 and severely injured his back while helping lift a heavy capstone onto a masonry column at Wabash College.

Court documents say a doctor found Escamilla’s injury left him unable to lift more than 20 pounds, effectively ending his career as a masonry laborer.

“If you’re a construction worker and you can’t lift more than 20 pounds, you’re not going to get a job,” said Escamilla’s attorney, Timothy Devereux.

Escamilla is asking the appellate court to overturn a Montgomery County court’s ruling last year, which was in favor of Shiel Sexton and found that two witnesses who reviewed Escamilla’s U.S. tax returns could not testify about his lost future earnings in the trial on his tort claim.

That trial is on hold until three-judge court rules on that matter and Shiel Sexton’s plans to raise Escamilla’s immigration status during trial.

Shiel Sexton attorney John Mervilde told the court that the company wants to introduce evidence he said shows Escamilla fraudulently landed his job with a masonry company that was doing work at the Wabash College job site where Shiel Sexton was the general contractor.

Mervilde said the case is one “where a plaintiff has obtained a job by relying on false documents or someone else’s documents.”

Because Escamilla is a lawful resident of Mexico, Mervilde said any lost wages he is able to claim should be based on the rate of pay available in Mexico, and not U.S. wages.

Judge Melissa Mays asked Devereux during Wednesday’s hearing whether Escamilla had used a “fake Social Security number” in landing his masonry job after he traveled to the U.S. with his family as a teenager.

Devereux conceded that that was the case. But he said that while his client may have been in the country without legal permission at the time that he was injured, that is no longer the case. He said Escamilla filed paperwork in 2014 seeking permanent U.S. residency, is married to a U.S. citizen and has three children who are U.S. citizens.

He said there’s no evidence Escamilla faces an immediate threat of deportation and that he’s likely to eventually win residency.

Devereux added that allowing into trial discussion of Escamilla’s immigration status would be “extremely prejudicial” and could sway the jury when the case should be about his lost earnings.

Dave Stafford for www.theindianalaawyer.com

A man’s lawsuit alleging Tippecanoe County officials violated the Americans With Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act by refusing to permit him to enter the courthouse with his service dog will proceed, a federal judge ruled.

Charles M. Riley claims in his complaint that he’s a veteran who suffers post-traumatic stress disorder and relies on his service dog, Bella, to provide balance support, mobility assistance and calming. Riley says Bella also has been individually trained to open and close doors, pull him in a wheelchair when necessary and help him pull a grocery cart home from the store.

The suit alleges Riley went to the courthouse in July 2014 accompanied by Bella to deliver a victim impact statement and evidence of damages he suffered in a criminal case in which he was a victim, but sheriff’s deputies providing security at the Lafayette courthouse refused to allow him inside with Bella. Riley claims the ban on Bella later prevented him from filing claims regarding unpaid rent and damages alleged against former tenants of two rental properties he owns.

Riley seeks an injunction, reimbursement of financial losses, compensatory damages and fees. His suit names Tippecanoe commissioners and the sheriff’s department.

The defendants argued Riley’s complaint should be dismissed because he did not sufficiently argue that Bella is a service animal and rather may fall into the category of untrained or emotional support animals, which are not covered under the ADA. Defendants also argued that Riley failed to show evidence Bella met the criteria as a service animal that had been individually trained.

But Judge Jon E. DeGuilio of the U.S. Court for the Northern District of Indiana in Lafayette this week denied the Tippecanoe County defendants’ motion to dismiss, holding in part Riley was not required to show how Bella had been individually trained at this stage.

“The Defendants do not provide any authority that stands for the opposite proposition: that a plaintiff must plead all facts within his knowledge,” DeGuilio wrote in his order denying dismissal in Charles M. Riley v. Board of Commissioners of Tippecanoe County, et al., 4:14-CV-063.

“This is not a complicated case and thus does not require an extensively detailed complaint. So, while Mr. Riley may not have provided an abundance of information about Bella, he has at least given ‘the opposing party notice of what the case is all about’ and shown ‘how, in the plaintiff’s mind at least, the dots should be connected.’ That is sufficient to survive a motion to dismiss.”