Boxed in
If you’re not in the car, you can’t be covered by the car’s insurance.
So say attorneys from Hartford Fire Insurance Company, who pushed to have a lawsuit against them thrown out because the man suing them was neither behind the wheel nor inside the insured delivery truck when he was struck by another truck outside a Greenpoint bar.
Plaintiff Jesus Rosado said that he was dropping off beer to the Europa Bar on Meserole Avenue in May 2004 when he was struck by a box truck as he leaned in to get another case of suds from his delivery truck, which Hartford insured.
Rosado suffered serious injuries during the accident and was awarded $25,000 by Countrywide Insurance, the insurer of the box truck that hit him.
But, when he turned to Hartford Fire Insurance Company for an additional payout, they balked.
In court papers, attorneys for Hartford Fire Insurance said that Rosado was not “occupying” the vehicle they were insuring at the time of the accident.
In great detail, Rosado showed that he is due a reward because he was “leaning into” the delivery truck to pick up a case of beer when he was hit.
In a clear recounting of the events that led up to the accident, Rosado said that he parked in front of a bus stop near the Europa bar on the right side of Manhattan Avenue near Meserole Street.
He put on his hazard lights, and then proceeded to the side of the truck to access the beer from the side bay doors, court papers said.
He then came across a cop, who told him that he had to move the truck because it was blocking the bus stop.
Rosado got back into the truck and drove it back around the corner onto Meserole, where he parked in front of a fire hydrant.
He and his colleague were in the process of delivering the beer when he opened the third bay of the truck to “maneuver the empty cases already in the truck” when he was struck by the box truck, which dragged him between ten and 12 feet and pinned him between the two vehicles.
Rosado said that he wasn’t leaning too far into the truck, but he remembered clearly that he was handling something inside the storage bay when he was hit.
Attorneys for Hartford Fire Insurance Company said that they should not be liable because Rosado “was not an occupant of the subject insured delivery truck at the time his accident occurred.”
“The plaintiff had already exited the vehicle in question completely and was absent from said vehicle for a substantial duration of time in the course of delivering beer to the Europa Bar,” attorneys said in court papers.
“The plaintiffs momentary contact with the inured vehicle for the purpose of depositing empty beer cases into a bay at the rear of the truck could not be construed as his being either ‘in, upon, entering into, or exiting from’ a motor vehicle when the subject accident occurred,” they wrote.
After hearing their arguments, Judge Larry Martin dismissed Hartford’s motion to dismiss the case. At the same time, Judge Martin dismissed Rosado’s motion for summary judgment in his favor, allowing a jury the pleasure of determining just how far one has to go to be insured by a company vehicle.
We hate “NY”
Two pimps who went by the names “NY” and “Pop” pleaded guilty to running an underage prostitution ring in Brooklyn and Queens last week, federal officials said.
Gathering in Brooklyn Federal Court on September 9, Jonathan Kelly, aka “NY” and co-conspirator John Ramirez, aka “Pop,” pleaded guilty to violating the Mann Act, which prohibits the interstate transport of individuals for prostitution.
Federal investigators charged that Kelly and Ramirez would recruit young women, some as young as 14 years old, in both Brooklyn and Queens and then force them to sell themselves on the streets of New York City, as well as a red light strip in Connecticut.
The two would also allegedly advertise their prostitution services on websites, such as Craig’s List, officials from the U.S. Attorney’s office said.
Federal officials said that both Kelly and Ramirez are expected to get 10 years in prison for their crimes.
“The defendants exploited young and vulnerable women and girls in our community in order to line their own pockets at the expense of their victims,” Benton Campbell, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York said in a statement. “Working with our partners in local law enforcement, we will continue to aggressively bring to justice those who seek to prey upon our youth and lure them into the sex trade.”
