Rodriguez v. Kline

Opinion

GATES, J.

Defendant Samuel Kline appeals from the judgment awarding Jesus Rodriguez $99,000 for damages sustained in a traffic accident on October 23, 1979.

We are called upon to decide whether a person who is within this country illegally is entitled to be compensated for his personal injuries based upon his projected earning capacity in (1) the United States, or (2) the country of his lawful citizenship. We must further determine which of the parties carries the burden on this issue and whether it presents a question for the trial court or for the jury. So far as we have been able to discover, no prior decision in this state, or elsewhere, has provided any significant guidelines.

When an individual enters this country in violation of our immigration laws, as respondent candidly conceded he did,

1

he is subject to deportation.

[1148]

(8 U.S.C. § 1251.) As a consequence, respondent’s status unquestionably bore upon the amount of his anticipated future earnings. That is to say, if respondent were to return, voluntarily or involuntarily, to Mexico, the income he could expect to receive there would be markedly less than a figure derived from his earnings during his sojourn here. To date the California courts that have considered this proposition at all have recognized its soundness.

Our own decision in

Metalworking Machinery, Inc.

v.

Superior Court

(1977) 69 Cal.App.3d 791, 794 [138 Cal.Rptr. 369], was, in fact, premised upon this concept, even though we did not explicitly analyze it. It was similarly implicit in the brief discussion found in

Clemente

v.

State of California

(1985) 40 Cal.3d 202, 220-221 [219 Cal.Rptr. 445, 707 P.2d 818], for if that plaintiff’s alien status had not been an appropriate area of inquiry, our Supreme Court would have had no occasion to express its disapproval of the means by which the defendant there sought to elicit information on the subject.