Davis, Saperstein & Salomon, P.C.’s partner Jeffrey Salomon, Esq., won a $1.5 million combined settlement for the family of a child who was fatally struck by a Bergen County Sheriff Officer vehicle on Route 208 and for his older brother, who witnessed the accident.
The brothers and two friends were crossing a New Jersey highway at night. Three members of the group reached the other side before the younger brother was struck in the left lane by a patrol vehicle traveling about 70 mph. He suffered fatal injuries and was pronounced dead at the scene. Evidence showed that the boy saw the vehicle coming, understood the danger, and experienced fear and pain before losing consciousness.
His older brother witnessed the crash from nearby. After seeing his younger brother killed, he suffered serious emotional distress, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and anxiety. Davis, Saperstein & Salomon, P.C. filed a separate personal injury claim for the lasting emotional harm he suffered, along with the family’s New Jersey wrongful death claim. Davis, Saperstein & Salomon, P.C. Partner Jeffrey Salomon pushed the case beyond the wrongful death claim and filed a separate claim for Negligent Infliction of Emotional Distress which is available when a family member witnesses a traumatic accident to another family and is within the ‘zone of danger as defined in the New Jersey case of Portee –v- Jaffee, 84 N.J. 88, 417 A.2d 521 (N.J. 1980).
Partner Jeffrey Salomon, Esq., hired special medical, vocational, and other experts to examine how the collision occurred and fully reconstruct the accident and its consequences. Their work addressed the child’s pre-impact terror, fear and suffering before death, the surviving brother’s emotional trauma, and the family’s financial losses. An economist hired as an expert witness calculated the potential economic loss resulting from the child’s death could have potentially exceed $1 million consistent with under the New Jersey case Green v. Bittner, 85 N.J. 1, 424 A.2d 210 (1980).
The $1.5 million combined settlement provided closure and resolved the family’s New Jersey wrongful death claim and the older brother’s separate personal injury claim for the PTSD, anxiety, and lasting emotional trauma he suffered after witnessing his younger brother’s fatal pedestrian accident.
