Woman fights for compensation after car swallowed by sinkhole in Essex County

A woman whose car was swallowed by a sinkhole in Essex County last week may be out of luck when it comes to helping pay for a new car. It turned out that she wasn’t alone because she was overlapping with the driver.

Lisette Pagan’s car was wrecked on August 9 when the ground collapsed while driving through Belleville’s Branch Brook Park. “So I hope that fear goes away. Now I’m working to see how I can get the car.”

According to Pagan, her insurance company has already told her it won’t help. Her policy states that she only covers her liability, and this type of damage is only covered by comprehensive coverage that she has not paid for.

Pagan says he has consulted lawyers in hopes of collecting money from Essex County, which manages the road, but experts say those claims are rarely successful.

“It’s well known in the legal community that New Jersey is one of the most difficult states to recover to public agencies for hazardous road conditions,” says consumer attorney Michael Galpern. said Mr.

Gulpern said that under New Jersey law, in order to collect against a public entity, a driver “knew, or should have known with due diligence, about the problem, and had to resolve the problem.” I have to prove I didn’t,” he said. They were corrected and their actions were unjust,” he said.

How big a legal barrier is that? Kane In Your Corner dug into the data and found that over the five-year period from 2014 to his 2018, a driver reported damages caused by road obstructions on state-operated roads and highways to the New Jersey Department of Treasury. was found to have filed more than 6,000 claims of him. The state paid for only 69 of them. Its success rate is only 1.1%.

If you’re determined to beat those odds, Galpern says you should start by looking at who controls the roads. It must also be submitted within 90 days.