Mount Laurel attorneys Chris Marcucci and Lewis Rosenblum secured summary judgment in the Superior Court of New Jersey, Salem County, on behalf of homeowners in a premises liability lawsuit arising from a fatal motor vehicle accident.
The plaintiff alleged that the homeowners negligently failed to trim a tree on their property, which partially obscured a stop sign at the intersection where the fatal accident occurred. A 16-year-old unlicensed driver was operating an unregistered vehicle at speeds exceeding 100 mph in the dark and rain, and drove straight through the intersection into an adjacent park and collided with a tree, resulting in the death of a passenger.
The court dismissed all claims against the clients with prejudice, finding that they owed no legal duty to maintain naturally occurring vegetation on their property. Furthermore, the court agreed that the alleged obstruction was not a proximate cause of the accident, as the driver’s extreme speed and reckless conduct made the collision entirely unavoidable regardless of the stop sign’s visibility.
