Legal landscape note: This article was originally published in 2015 and describes the law as it stood at that time. New Jersey law changes frequently.
Two crashes, two lawsuits, and two defense teams each blaming the other accident for your neck and back injuries. That is the trap an injured plaintiff can fall into when related cases are tried separately, and it is why courts should generally hear such claims together so the full controversy can be viewed in its totality. A 2015 published Appellate Division decision, Moraes v. Wesler, reinforced that principle: the panel held that a trial judge abused his discretion by refusing to consolidate two lawsuits filed by a woman injured in separate car crashes less than three years apart.
The plaintiff, Telma Moraes, was struck head-on in November 2011 when another driver crossed the center line, and was rear-ended in September 2013 while her first suit was pending. She claimed overlapping cervical and lumbar disc injuries from both crashes, and the medical experts disagreed about which accident caused which injuries. Her motion to consolidate the two cases went unopposed, yet the trial court denied it, citing the gap in time between the accidents and a concern about jury confusion.
Writing for the panel, Judge William Nugent explained that the record disclosed no significant or complex liability issue in either action, that trying the cases separately risked inconsistent verdicts -- each jury could blame the other accident -- and that the trial court offered no adequate explanation for its ruling. Consolidation is discretionary under Rule 4:38-1, but discretion must be exercised on a rational basis.
The decision matters for injury victims with successive accidents and overlapping injuries: keeping the claims in one proceeding prevents defendants from pointing at each other in separate trials while the plaintiff recovers from neither.
Based on reporting by David Gialanella, "Failure to Consolidate PI Suits Was Error, Panel Says," New Jersey Law Journal, February 25, 2015.