That Dog Won’t Hunt. Jury Awards $5.2M to Accident Victim.

A New Jersey jury has awarded $5.2 million to a Watchung man who suffered spinal injuries after being hit in an accident in a Costco parking lot in 2017.

The jury rejected the claim by the other driver and his insurer that the injury was caused by the man lifting his 12-pound dog, not by the accident.

On October 22, 2017, Marc Ferrara was in his car waiting in line for gas at the Costco in North Plainfield. When he opened his door to exit his car to check on his child in the back seat, he was struck by a car driven by Noah Greenbaum.

Following the accident, Ferrara was treated for neck and shoulder pain with medications. Several months later he again sought medical care because he was experiencing increased pain. Ferrara eventually underwent several surgeries on his spine that he said were a result of the accident.

Liberty Mutual Insurance and Greenbaum argued that the car accident did not cause the injury. They relied in part on a doctor’s note from the visit months after the accident that suggested Ferrara felt increased neck pain after lifting his small dog.

Ferrara’s attorney, Nicholas J. Leonardis, attempted to block that medical note as hearsay evidence for several reasons. The content of medical records was hearsay, he said, because the entire medical record was not admitted into evidence. Also, Ferrara had testified he did not say anything about lifting his dog. Thus, Leonardis argued, the contents were not Ferrara’s statements but were the medical provider’s statements and were out-of-court statements. Also, the doctor who wrote the note did not testify so there was no opportunity to cross examine the note’s author. “This is the exact type of prejudicial evidence that must be excluded,” claimed Leonardis.

The judge allowed the jury to consider the medical note about lifting the dog. But in the end, the jury didn’t buy it. The jury found that Ferrara was 20% liable for his own injuries and Greenbaum was 80% liable, resulting in a net award of $5.2 million to Ferrara.

The original complaint also cited Costco, which Ferrara argued failed to monitor or direct the traffic passing the cars that were waiting in the gas line. The jury found Costco was not liable at all.