Court upholds woman’s $1.8M award in NJ Transit bus attack
Litigation Reports
In a closely divided ruling, New Jersey’s Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld a $1.8 million jury award for a woman who was struck on the head with a bottle while riding a New Jersey Transit bus.
The 4-3 decision affirmed that NJ Transit, a public carrier, has the same heightened duty of care to protect customers as would a private carrier. NJ Transit had argued it wasn’t liable under the higher standard.
Anasia Maison needed 22 stitches in her forehead after the 2013 attack in Newark, which occurred after a group of young men began harassing her.
A new jury will determine whether any of the damages should be shared by the bottle-thrower, who was never caught. Under new instructions included in Wednesday’s ruling, jurors can consider whether NJ Transit had effective polices in place and whether the driver followed those policies.
The dissenting justices disagreed with the majority’s assessment of the level of care required of New Jersey Transit, and with the scope of the new jury instruction that “presses the jury to allocate most ? if not all ? of the fault in this case to NJ Transit,” according to Justice Anne Patterson.
According to court documents, the driver didn’t stop the bus or ask the men harassing Maison to get off after she switched seats. After Maison was hit with a liquor bottle, he contacted NJ Transit’s control center, which notified police and emergency medical services.
The ruling “is a significant victory for those of us who work to assure public safety,” Maison’s attorney, K. Raja Bhattacharya, said in an email. “We hope that NJ Transit will follow the direction of the court and re-examine its policies and procedures concerning passenger safety.”
New Jersey Transit declined to comment Wednesday, citing the pending litigation.
Related listings
-
Georgia Supreme Court Chief Justice Melton to step down
Litigation Reports 02/12/2021Georgia Supreme Court Chief Justice Harold D. Melton announced Friday that he is stepping down on July 1.Melton said in a statement that he doesn’t yet know what he’ll do next, but that he is exploring opportunities “for the next se...
-
Justices: California can’t enforce indoor church service ban
Litigation Reports 02/08/2021The Supreme Court is telling California that it can’t bar indoor church services because of the coronavirus pandemic, but it can keep for now a ban on singing and chanting indoors.The high court issued orders late Friday in two cases where chur...
-
Supreme Court sides with Germany in Nazi-era art dispute
Litigation Reports 02/03/2021The Supreme Court is making it harder for a multimillion-dollar lawsuit involving centuries-old religious artworks obtained by the Nazis from Jewish art dealers to continue in U.S. courts.The court ruled unanimously Wednesday in a case involving the ...
Does a car or truck accident count as a work injury?
If an employee is injured in a car crash while on the job, they are eligible to receive workers’ compensation benefits. “On the job” injuries are not limited to accidents and injuries that happen inside the workplace, they may also include injuries suffered away from an employee’s place of work while performing a job-related task, such as making a delivery or traveling to a client meeting.
Regular commutes to and from work don’t usually count. If you get into an accident on your way in on a regular workday, it’s probably not considered a work injury for the purposes of workers’ compensation.
If you drive around as part of your job, an injury on the road or loading/unloading accident is likely a work injury. If you don’t typically drive around for work but are required to drive for the benefit of your employer, that would be a work injury in many cases.
If you are out of town for work, pretty much any driving would count as work related. For traveling employees, any accidents or injuries that happen on a work trip, even while not technically working, can be considered a work injury. The reason is because you wouldn’t be in that town in the first place, had you not been on a work trip.
Workers’ compensation claims for truck drivers, traveling employees and work-related injuries that occur away from the job site can be challenging and complex. At Krol, Bongiorno & Given, we understand that many families depend on the income of an injured worker, and we are proud of our record protecting the injured and disabled. We have handled well over 30,000 claims for injured workers throughout the state of Illinois.