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Marboah v. Ackerman6/30/2005
Argued March 10, 2005
Before SCHWELB and GLICKMAN, Associate Judges, and DUNCAN-PETERS, Associate Judge, Superior Court of the District of Columbia.
This legal malpractice case is based on a claim by plaintiff John Brobbey Marboah that defendants Alan J. Ackerman, Esq., and Ackerman's now-dissolved law firm, Stien, Braunstein & Associates, P.C. (SBA), negligently permitted the statute of limitations to expire without filing a workers' compensation claim on Marboah's behalf with the Virginia Workers' Compensation Commission. Marboah appeals from an order of the trial court awarding summary judgment in favor of the defendants. Because Marboah was an illegal alien -- a fact that he fraudulently concealed from his employer, the Commission, the defendants, and the court -- he was ineligible under then-current Virginia law to recover workers' compensation. Accordingly, even assuming, arguendo, that the defendants were negligent in representing Marboah, he suffered no compensable loss as a result of their negligence, and he is not entitled to any recovery.
At the time of the accident for which he was seeking workers' compensation , Marboah was ineligible for any award under Virginia law because, as an illegal alien who had overstayed his visa, he was not an "employee" at all for purposes of the state's workers' compensation statute. Marboah intentionally and fraudulently concealed his ineligibility from his employer and from the workers' compensation carrier by using the social security card and number of a man named Charles A. Boateng and by pretending that he was Boateng. In his deposition almost four years later, Marboah referred to Boateng as his "ghost identity." Marboah maintained his masquerade for more than three years.
Because Marboah was barred by law from receiving compensation benefits, he presented his claim in the name of Charles A. Boateng. Believing that the injured person was in fact Boateng, the employer and the employer's compensation carrier accepted the claim in that name and under Boateng's social security number. Marboah could obtain benefits, however, only if the Virginia Workers' Compensation Commission remained unaware of two key facts: first, that the claimant, who purported to be Charles A. Boateng, was really an ineligible illegal alien named Marboah; and second, that Marboah had fraudulently concealed his true identity and his ineligibility from his employer and from the employer's carrier. Furthermore, because exposure of the truth would have been fatal to Marboah's claim and would have rendered him ineligible for compensation, Marboah felt compelled to adhere to his false story, so that his initial false statements snowballed with the passage of time. Marboah's misrepresentations to the employer and to the carrier regarding his true identity and illegal status were followed by further lies to his original attorneys (defendants Ackerman and SBA), to his present counsel, to the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), and to the Superior Court.
"To decide this case we need look no further than the maxim that no man may take advantage of his own wrong." Glus v. Brooklyn E. Dist. Terminal, 359 U.S. 231, 232-33 (1959). This principle is " eeply rooted in our jurisprudence," and has been applied "in many diverse classes of cases by both law and equity courts." Id. It is not easy to envisage a more apt example of an attempt by a man to take advantage of his own wrongful acts "and become the richer for it," Riggs Nat'l Bank of Washington, D.C. v. District of Columbia, 581 A.2d 1229, 1253 (D.C. 1990), than Marboah's series of deceptions as his claim for compensation progressed. At every point, telling the truth -- namely, that
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