Latino lawyer helps abused elderly

Latino attorney fights for abused nursing-home patients
(EFE Ingles Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) By Luis Uribe.

Los Angeles, Mar 17 (EFE).- Latino attorney Stephen Garcia has dedicated more than 15 years of his career to defending abused nursing home patients.

Garcia has consulted on class-action lawsuits representing consumers against some of the largest nursing homes and obtained millions of dollars in compensation for abused elderly clients.

"I didn't seek out this field. It sought me out," the 50-year-old lawyer, who heads the Garcia Law Firm in Long Beach, California, told Efe in an interview.

Sixteen years ago, when he was working as a criminal attorney, "Jesus Noe came to my office, at that time in Newport Beach, looking for a lawyer who spoke Spanish to take the case of his mother Zoyla, who had suffered burns on more than 40 percent of her body in a nursing home." Although it was not his specialty, Garcia was moved by the situation of abuse against an elderly woman and took the case. With the advice of his Uncle Bill, another lawyer in the family, he pursued the case and won, obtaining hefty damages for the victim.

"That led me to get to know more about the care of the elderly and to find innumerable cases of abuse that made me very angry. And so I've continued to be angry for 16 years," he said.

His contributions to the field motivated California Lawyer magazine to select him as the 2009 Attorney of the Year, giving him the award in the category of Elder Law.

But that honor has not distanced him from his Mexican roots, said this son of immigrants whose grandfather came to the United States to work in the fields with three children because his other kids had died in Mexico.

"My father was 3 years old when they came from Mexico and shortly thereafter my grandfather died," he recalled. It was then that the older brother - Uncle Humberto - helped his mother send the two younger children to study at St. John Bosco Catholic high school in Los Angeles.

Humberto went to college on a football scholarship. While Bill, finished high school, enlisted in the U.S. Army and fought in Korea, where he earned two medals for valor for saving several fellow soldiers from a grenade blast.

Later, with the help of L.A. Superior Court Judge Victor Chavez, one of the pioneers in the practice of law for Mexicans in California, Bill obtained a scholarship and studied law at Loyola Marymount University.

In the same way, Uncle Bill helped his brother Richard - Stephen's father - study law to round out the first generation of lawyers in the family.

From those roots and family solidarity that "has continued and will continue for generations," arose an authentic interest in helping the less-favored people in society.

Every Christmas, "in an organization called 'Amigos' (Friends) created by Joe Rivera, who died last year," they get together to deliver about 250 baskets of food to poor families in Boyle Heights, where they grew up.

But Garcia is concerned about the ongoing changes in values within the Latino community.

"Latino families generally don't leave their parents in a nursing home. They take care of them in their own homes. However, the culture is changing and the new generations, with fewer religious values and because of economic pressure, little by little are going to agree more to have their elderly cared for in those centers," he said.

This new situation obliges future generations to learn the importance of being attentive to what happens in nursing homes and similar facilities.

"Visit them frequently, go at different times and if you notice anything irregular, complain. It's important to make noise so that the problems are corrected," he said.