$500,000 Settlement for 31-Year-Old Man in Auto Collision in Newark, New Jersey
A $500,000 settlement was reached on September 25, 2023, in an Essex County suit, after an employee of a moving company made a left turn T- boning the Plaintiff’s vehicle.
On November 7, 2018, Plaintiff Hernan Xavier Arias-Diaz, age 31, was driving his car on Wilson Avenue, Newark, NJ when a Sprinter van owned by Defendant Carlos Pato Movers, LLC and driven by Defendant Carlos M. Pato, was allegedly waived on by a police officer and proceeded through the intersection, thereby T-boning Hernan’s vehicle on the driver’s side. The defendant was not ticketed for the collision.
After the accident, Hernan sought medical treatment for his neck and back injuries, including chiropractic, acupuncture, and two cervical injections. Hernan had trouble finding a surgeon to address the back injury, which was his primary source of pain, due to a language barrier and fact that many surgeons are underpaid for surgeries under the PIP fee schedule. Ultimately, five years after the collision, Mr. Diaz underwent a L4-5 bilateral foraminotomy and discectomy on January 3, 2023.
The defense adjuster raised the issue that Hernan did not undergo a lumbar fusion and that no hardware was implanted in Hernan’s back. The defense’s expert, disagreed with the radiologist and plaintiff’s expert and opined he did not see the herniations, and even if he did they were degenerative.
The case was filed in Essex County Superior Court on January 5, 2021, and litigated by Stephanie Tolnai, Esq. and Lazaro Berenguer of Clark Law Firm, P.C, captioned Hernan X. Arias-Diaz v. Carlos M. Pato, et al., ESX-5748-20. The defendant was represented by Christopher Devanny, Esq. of Kent, Mcbride, P.C., Middletown, NJ.
The case was settled by Stephanie Tolnai on September 25, 2023, for $500,000. It took five years for the defenses’ insurance company to acknowledge that Hernan was truly injured and compensate him for the $500,000 Settlement for 31 year Old Man in Auto Collision defendant’s failure to follow basic safety rules of the road.
