By Liz Mineo/Daily News staff
The MetroWest Daily News
New! Thu Sep 20, 2007, 11:58 PM EDT
MARLBOROUGH -


Sergio Silva, who lost his leg in a work-related accident, has moved back to Brazil.

Nearly three years after he lost a leg at a Marlborough auto repair shop, a Brazilian man who entered the country illegally has received $35,000 from the state Department of Industrial Accidents in compensation for his loss.

At the time of the November 2004 accident, Sergio Silva, 42, was working for Anluser Automotive and Sales Inc., which didn't carry workers' compensation insurance.

Silva's claim with the Workers' Compensation Trust Fund initially had been denied because a judge didn't find evidence to support that Silva was working for his employer at the time of the accident. The trust fund pays for those employees who are injured while working for companies that don't have insurance.

In the final decision, which came out in June, Frederick E. Levine, an administrative judge with the Department of Industrial Accidents, ruled that the Workers' Compensation Trust Fund should pay Silva $35,832 because he found evidence that at the time of the accident Silva was an employee of Anluser Automotive.

"While in the course of his employment, he suffered an industrial injury which arose out of his employment," Levine wrote. "As a result of this industrial injury, I find that the employee was temporarily and totally incapacitated from November 2004, to date and continuing."

Before making his ruling, Levine interviewed Silva using Skype - an Internet-based telephone program - according to the Department of Industrial Accidents.

Silva had worked at Anluser Automotive and Sales Inc., at 315 Maple St., for four months at the time of the accident. He was injured when a car he was working on lurched forward and pinned him against a wall, crushing his right leg.

In 2005, Silva returned to Brazil. He couldn't be reached for comment.

The money to pay Silva for his injuries came out of the Workers' Compensation Trust Fund, said Bill Taupier, deputy director of administration at the Department of Industrial Accidents. The state will recover the money paid to Silva from his employer, he said.

"We go after employers who failed to carry workers' compensation benefits," said Taupier. "We'll recover whatever we can by filing lawsuits, pursuing civil litigations, and using all legal resources available."

Attempts to contact the shop owners were unsuccessful. The phone number for Anluser Automotive in Marlborough has been disconnected and the last annual report that all corporations must file with the state Corporations Division was for 2004.

In 2005, Silva was the subject of an article in the Daily News in which he revealed he was an illegal immigrant and asked the public for help to buy a prosthetic leg. In 2006, the Daily News interviewed him again in Governador Valadares, the city in Brazil's Minas Gerais state, where he was working as a car mechanic in his auto body shop.

Despite being in the country illegally, Silva was entitled to receive workers' compensation benefits from the Workers' Compensation Trust Fund. In 2003, the board of the Massachusetts Department of Industrial Accidents, which oversees the workers' compensation system, ruled that illegal workers are eligible for workers' compensation coverage.

For Carlos Eduardo Siqueira, a professor at UMass Lowell's department of work environment, who helped Silva after the accident, said the case's outcome sets a good precedent for illegal aliens and workers in general. Workers have rights when they're injured, but most are scared to pursue compensation for their losses, he said.

"It's one of those rare cases in which some justice was done," said Siqueira. "Sergio was courageous enough to pursue the case, and though the compensation he received doesn't pay for the damage done, for all his pain and suffering, it was somewhat rewarding."

(Liz Mineo can be reached at 508-626-3825 or lmineo@cnc.com)

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