Money in fatal farmworker crash turns family disputes in legal ones

By Alan Gomez, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Sunday, April 18, 2004

VALLE DE SANTIAGO, Mexico -- Soon after relatives of Jose Luis Garcia Pichardo learned he was one of the migrant workers who died in a Fort Pierce van crash last month, they rushed to his side.

They called him hard-working. They called him a responsible man who sent money to his parents, brothers and sisters back home.

And they called him single.

But back home, Juana Lucera Landin Luna, a petite woman with a soft voice, says Garcia Pichardo is her husband. She says he's the father of her two children. And last week, in a government office in Valle de Santiago, she produced a marriage license and two birth certificates as proof.

The difference could means tens of thousands of dollars for whoever is right. If he was married, his children and wife are entitled to his death benefits. If single, they go to his parents and siblings. And it will now be up to government officials and possibly a judge to decide.

Garcia Pichardo's case is the most extreme example of what has become a sometimes disrespectful and oftentimes annoying race for the compensation that could be coming to the families of the victims.

Attorneys in sharp suits and dark sunglasses from Texas and Florida have gone to the dusty town of Valle de Santiago, which six of the dead called home. Back in Fort Pierce, where the workers all lived during the picking season, attorneys have walked into the hospital rooms of survivors recuperating from the crash, asking them to sign on the dotted line. Most of the victims' families have handfuls of business cards they flip through while rolling their eyes.

"You have to be careful what you say about the attorneys, because some of them might be getting involved with good intentions," said Secretary J. Jesus Salmeron Hernandez, Valle de Santiago's second-ranking official. "Of course, some aren't."

Some relatives of the dead already have signed up with John De Leon, an attorney who works closely with the Mexican consulate in Miami. Others have retained private attorneys.

But there are still unrepresented victims and a ninth victim announced Friday. With each victim entitled to state benefits of either $75,000 or $150,000 -- Florida law and the state Supreme Court have differed on the amount -- and possibly more coming in donations and even more potentially coming in civil lawsuits, the competition for those dollars can get fierce.

And in Garcia Pichardo's case, it already is.

Landin Luna said, and has a certified marriage license that shows, that she was married to Garcia Pichardo on Jan. 19, 1996.

Shortly afterward, she said she and Garcia Pichardo moved into her mother's house in the urban center of Valle de Santiago, where women work in stores and go shopping in the town's main street and lead rather independent lives.

She said that move banished her in the eyes of Garcia Pichardo's family.

In Mexico, it is an old custom for a newlywed couple to move into the husband's house or his family's. And that idea is even more ingrained in rural communities, like the ranch where the Garcia Pichardos live. There, men work the fields while women faithfully stay home, tending the children, preparing the food and clothing.

"They were accustomed to a certain way of life, and I didn't like that life," Landin Luna said.

She said, and two birth certificates show, that she and Garcia Pichardo gave birth to Perla Garcia Landin on April 11, 1996, and to Pedro Luiz Garcia Landin on July 30, 2000.

Garcia Pichardo left shortly afterward for the United States to make American dollars, and Landin Luna said he sent her and the kids money when he could. Even that was a sore spot for his family, she said.

"They didn't understand why, if they were struggling, he sent money to me and not them," Landin Luna said. "I talked to him the Sunday before the accident, and he told me he had been depressed about that recently. How his parents refused to accept me."

But Garcia Pichardo's family didn't even acknowledge Landin Luna after the accident.

For a week, people in Fort Pierce talked about Garcia Pichardo as a good son who sent money back to his family. His brother, Juan Garcia Pichardo, who also lives in Fort Pierce, simply said he was single and didn't get into it further.

In Valle de Santiago, his brothers spoke of how he was the most hard-pressed of the siblings to send back money because he was having trouble finding work. One brother, Martin Garcia Pichardo, said the family has never even heard of Landin Luna, calling her an opportunist trying to take advantage of a lucrative situation.

"He never mentioned her. We don't know her," he said. "This is already a hard time, and she's making it even harder."

Government officials, unsure of how to handle the dispute, set up Garcia Pichardo's body Friday in a funeral home in town -- his family on one side of the room, Landin Luna and her family on the other, uniformed and undercover police officers standing guard.

On Saturday morning, Garcia Pichardo was buried in a small cemetery outside of Valle de Santiago's urban center, where both families again lined either side of the casket.

Neither side spoke during the funeral.