Jury rules in favor of Stuart hospital that deported immigrant
A Martin County jury this morning sided with a local hospital in a closely watched lawsuit surrounding the private deportation of a brain-damaged Guatemalan patient.
Martin Memorial Hospital officials in 2003 sent Luis Alberto Jimenez, an illegal immigrant, on a chartered flight back to Guatemala after he had run up more than $1.5 million in medical bills in a case that garnered national attention.
Attorneys for Jimenez’s guardian, Montejo Gaspar, had asked the jury to find that Martin Menorial acted unreasonable in deporting Jimenez and asked for more than $1 million for his care in Guatemala and punitive damages on top of that.
The jury rejected their arguments in a verdict returned early this morning, ending about nine hours of deliberations that began Thursday afternoon.
Harold
