Generally, the owner of a commercial property has the duty to maintain the adjoining sidewalks in a reasonably safe condition and may be liable to pedestrians using the sidewalks if those are unsafe. Two recent Appellate Division decisions considered whether the sites of two separate accidents were commercial properties for liability purposes.
In a personal injury case, the plaintiff is obligated to prove at trial that her injuries are causally related to the accident. Typically this is accomplished through the use of a medical expert who evaluates the plaintiff, provides an expert report and testifies at trial. This may also involve the use of diagnostic testing to support the expert’s conclusion.
In New Jersey, accident victims have two years from the date of their accident to file a lawsuit, under the applicable statute of limitations. Any case filed after that deadline is subject to dismissal.
The New Jersey Tort Claims Act in many ways limits the ability of injured persons to obtain compensation from governmental entities and employees for negligence.
The manager of a Burger King restaurant was walking through the parking lot of her store when she noticed a newspaper stuck underneath some bushes, about ten feet from the restaurant door. As she walked toward the bushes, intending to pick up the newspaper, she stepped off the sidewalk into a mulched area, where she tripped on a stump and injured her knee.
The New Jersey Appellate Division recently reversed a trial court’s dismissal of a falldown case, raising some instructive points. The plaintiff had slipped and fallen on black ice near a metal drainage grate in her employer’s parking lot and sued the owner of the building and lot.The trial court judge found that prior complaints of ice in the parking lot were insufficient to constitute constructive notice of icing conditions in the area of the lot where the plaintiff fell.
In 2014, our truck driver client “Danny” was involved in a collision which caused personal injuries and collision damage to another driver and her vehicle. At that time, he reported the accident to the lessee company to which he had leased the vehicle for commercial hauling purposes. Unfortunately, without counsel, Danny was unable to confirm coverage for the accident, although he was being charged for insurance consistently. He also had his own “bobtail” coverage for his tractor so long as it was not pulling a trailer (and therefore not available as coverage for this particular accident). Danny’s troubles were exacerbated by the fact that he is an immigrant with limited English communication skills.
