Top 20 Personal Injury Award for New Jersey Settlement of $5.975 Million in Case of Child Struck by Vehicle

A boy struck by a car in the street and his family settled a Monmouth County suit, Moreno-Flores v. Fell, for $5.975 million on November 7, 2016.
In June 2015, Guadalupe Janeth Moreno-Flores and her two-and-a-half-year-old-son, Aldo, were in a park in Lake Terrace in Bradley Beach when the boy ran into the street. Moreno-Flores chased him, but while Aldo was in the street, he was struck by an SUV driven by Eileen Fell, according to the plaintiff’s lawyers.
Also was struck and dragged, sustaining bone fractures, a brain injury and other injuries that led to permanent scarring on his head and neck, said Norman Hobbie of Hobbie, Corrigan & Bertucio in Eatontown, counsel to Moreno-Flores and father, Saul Esparza, and Robert Fuggi of the Fuggi Law Firm in Toms River, who represents Aldo.
The suit included a claim under Portee v. Jaffee on behalf of Moreno-Flores, who claimed she sustained psychological injuries because she witnessed Aldo’s injury and underwent counseling, Moreno-Flores and Esparza Guzman also logged loss of consortium and loss of companionship claims.
The defense contested liability as well as the severity of the injuries, according to Hobbie and Fuggi.
The parties had completed expert discovery when they settled on November 7, 2016, during mediation with retired Ocean County Superior Court Judge James Clyne of Benchmark Resolution Services in New Egypt.
The sum is made up of $3.25 million for Aldo, $2.5 million for Moreno-Flores and $225,000 for Esparza, Guzman, Hobbie and Fuggi said.
Fuggi noted that the settlement sum for Aldo is subject to court approval.

Fell was represented by Jeffrey Bell of Golden Rothchild Spagnola Lundell Boylan & Garubo in Bridgewater and Brendan Judge of Connell Foley in Roseland. Neither returned a call seeking comment on the
settlement.