News & Articles

Many Second Injury Fund Cases end with a Judge of Compensation ruling that the Fund is dismissed from the case. This usually happens when the Judge determines that (a) the claimant is not totally disabled, or (b) the claimant was totally disabled as a result of the last accident alone, or (c) the claimant’s pre-existing conditions were not disabling.

In the case of Vassilatos v. Mercer Wrecking Recycling Corporation, decided July 2, 2008, the Appellate Judges (Judges Fuentes and Grall) reviewed whether the workers’ compensation judge made specific-enough findings as to whether two intervening accidents “caused or contributed” to the claimant’s permanent disability.

In the case of Bolz v. Bolz, a published opinion relapsed in May 2008, the Appellate Division examined the combined effect of the New Jersey Tort Claims Act (TCA), N.J.S.A. 59:1-1 to 12-3; the Joint Tortfeasors Contribution Law (JTCL), N.J.S.A. 2A:53A-1 to -5; and the Comparative Negligence Act (CNA), N.J.S.A. 2A:15-5.1 to -5.17, when there is a collision between a private automobile and an automobile that is owned by a public entity and driven by a public employee.

In a decision released June 10, 2008, the New Jersey Supreme Court held that a negligent infliction of emotional distress claim, fashioned on the liability set out in Portee v. Jaffee, is independent of the requirements imposed by the Automobile Insurance Cost Recovery Act’s verbal threshold.

In Penn National v. Costa, decided April 29, 2008, the Appellate Division reversed the Law Division’s denial of the motion for summary judgment by the defendant/third-party plaintiff homeowner’s insurer and remanded for the entry of judgment for the homeowner’s insurer and against the plaintiff automobile insurer in a coverage action for injuries sustained by the third-party defendant when he slipped on ice and hit his head on the vertical post of the jack being used to replace a tire on his employer’s pickup truck in the employer’s driveway. Because the injuries arose out of the maintenance of an automobile, which fell under an exclusion in the homeowner’s insurance policy, the court held that the auto carrier was required to defend and indemnify the vehicle owner.

On Friday, May 3, 2008 New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine signed the nations’ third “Family Leave Act” allowing workers up to six weeks off to care for a newborn or newly adopted child, or a sick parent, spouse or child. They could collect up to two-thirds of their pay, up to a maximum of $524 a week. The Bill (A-873) is available here: http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/2008/Bills/A1000/873_I1.HTM

In an important decision for E&O carriers for insurance brokers, the Appellate Division has held that even where an insured knows it has a potential malpractice action against its broker, that claim will not be barred by the Entire Controversy Doctrine if it is not brought in connection with a declaratory judgment action to deny coverage procured by the negligent broker.