Eighty-six year old carjack victim wins ground-breaking New Jersey case

Elmwood Park — In a ground-breaking New Jersey legal case, Phillip C. Wiskow and Carey A. Donovan, lawyers for an 86-year-old Clifton man who was brutally beaten while fighting off a carjacker in 2002, have finally compelled his insurance company to pay for his disabilities under New Jersey’s Uninsured Motorists Law. As a result of the carjacking, the victim suffered debilitating injuries, including a fractured hip, which required multiple surgeries and a hip replacement. An active, healthy man before the attack, the part-time handyman can no longer work or even do normal everyday activities, such as dressing without help, and must use a cane or walker. The victim’s insurance carrier, New Jersey Manufacturers, refused to pay on the grounds that (1) the injuries were sustained while the carjacker was outside the vehicle and the carjacker did not become an uninsured motorist until he got into the car and (2) the victim’s injuries resulted from the beating rather than the actual operation of the vehicle. However, two lower courts agreed with the victim’s lawyers - of Gelman, Gelman, Wiskow & McCarthy in Elmwood Park. They argued that the carjacker, Bryant Nash of Irvington, took over operation of the car at the moment he brandished the shotgun and ordered the handyman to move over. “The weapon,” said Wiskow, “made clear Nash’s intent to take control of the car and his power to do so.” New Jersey Manufacturers’ attorney Daniel J. Pomeroy, who co-authored the 2006 book on the subject of Uninsured and Underinsured Motorists law, New Jersey Insurance Law, appealed the lower courts’ decisions all the way to the Supreme Court of New Jersey. Pomeroy said the lower court’s decision to provide coverage “established what is certainly the all-time high water mark in this State regarding the reach of this insurance.” Urging the Supreme Court to take up the matter, he said the lower courts’ rulings had tossed “logic and reason completely to the wind ... to provide the plaintiff with automobile insurance money,” which, Pomeroy went on to allege, “essentially converts [Uninsured Motorist] insurance to crime insurance.” But the state’s highest court refused to hear the company’s final appeal and, in light of the high court’s refusal, New Jersey Manufacturers has agreed to pay its full policy limit — half a million dollars — to his client. “What this means is that from now on, when people are injured by carjackers in New Jersey, they can recover for the pain they suffer and the loss of enjoyment of life, not just their medical bills,” said Wiskow. “Our client’s physical injuries were severe and completely changed and constricted his life.” Wiskow also noted that each year in New Jersey, more than 300 people become victims of carjackings. He said that Essex County alone has historically accounted for more than half of the incidents. On Feb. 19, 2002, Wiskow’s client was a few days shy of his 81st birthday and employed part-time as a handyman for North Jersey Express in Union. As he was leaving the company’s parking lot, the 36-year-old Nash motioned him to roll down his window, pointed a sawed-off shotgun at the victim’s head and threatened to kill him if he didn’t move over and let Nash drive. The victim, a veteran, grabbed the barrel of the shotgun to deflect it. Nash then dragged him out of the car, punched him multiple times in the face and beat him with the butt of the gun. Nash was apprehended the day after the carjacking. Having confessed to multiple robberies and carjackings in and around Montclair, he was sentenced to 27 years in state prison.