STUART — Opening arguments began this morning in the civil trial of the guardian of an injured Guatemalan immigrant who sued a local hospital for privately deporting him.

Montejo Gaspar’s attorney William King spent the morning telling the 8-member Martin County jury about the plight of Luis Alberto Jimenez, an undocumented immigrant who lived in Indiantown until a drunk driver hit the car he was riding in and sent him to Martin Memorial Hospital with severe brain injuries.

That was in February 2000. Over the next three years, King told the jurors, Jimenez was bounced to and from a nursing home before mounting medical bills prompted hospital officials to seek approval to send him to a hospital in Guatemala.

“The evidence will show that Martin Memorial was frustrated by the amount of money they spent on him with little reimbursement from the government,” King said this morning.

Hospital officials won approval in 2003 from Circuit Judge John Fennelly to privately deport Jimenez. By then,the hospital had spent more than $1.5 million, officials there said, costs they paid largely without government help because Jimenez was an undocumented illegal immigrant.

King said the decision came at the end of a two-day hearing where the hospital offered flimsy evidence to ensure that Jimenez would receive adequate care in Guatemala. Because the hospital receives federal funding, King told jurors, the hospital is required to make sure that the sick patients they discharge go to a place equipped to care for them.

King told jurors this morning that Gaspar’s attorney was mounting a vigorous appeal when the hospital launched a strategic plan to “forcibly remove” Jimenez from the country before an appellate court could stay Fennelly’s order.

A nurse accompanied Jimenez on a hospital-chartered flight back to Guatemala as guardian Montejo Gaspar appealed the decision.

An appeals court later ruled that Fennelly did not have authority to approve Martin Memorial’s request, clearing the way for Gaspar to file a lawsuit against the hospital for false imprisonment.

By then Jimenez had been kicked out of two hospitals in Guatemala and had moved back to a remote village, where his attorneys say he lives today with virtually no medical care.

King showed jurors a picture of Jimenez, now 37, and his elderly mother who serves as his sole caretaker.

“He lives with a mother who fears for his life when she is not there to care for him,” King said.

Scott Michaud, attorney for Martin Memorial, is expected to deliver his first words to jurors this afternoon. The trial is expected to last at least two weeks.

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