Jersey City, New Jersey-Griffin v. Heibei Textiles, Inc. et. al.
The personal injury claim of a Florida man, formerly a resident of Bergenfield, New Jersey was settled with counsel for Tianjin Tientsin Marine Shipping Co, a Chinese Company, for $900,000.00. The suit against Tientsin Marine stems from an April 30, 1992 incident which occurred at the premises of CBL Trucking in Kearny, New Jersey when Thomas Griffin, then 32, was struck in the head by a 350 lb bale of cloth which fell from an improperly loaded Sealand container mounted on a chassis that had been loaded and sealed in China and shipped to the United States for final delivery to a Rhode Island company. The bale knocked the plaintiff to the ground causing him to suffer a fractured skull resulting in long term cognitive and sensory deficits, as well as total disability. The plaintiff asserted that the defendant Tientsin Marine could have prevented the plaintiff's injuries when the container was opened in the United States by properly loading the trailer; the fabric bales had been loaded on end, creating a dangerously unbalanced condition within the sealed container.
The lawsuit filed in Hudson County named as defendants the companies responsible for the purchase, loading and transport of the container to and in the United States. A legal ruling by the Hon. George P. Moser, Jr., J.S.C. in 1997 confirmed that the automobile policies for the tractor as well as the trailer were required to provide coverage for the Chinese company responsible for the loading, under the loading and unloading coverage provided in the policies issued to defendants PJT Transport and Sea-Land Services the owners of the tractor and trailer, respectively. A declaratory judgment lawsuit contesting insurance coverage was partially resolved in the settlement, with the insurance carrier, Public Service Mutual and Reliance National continuing an appeal as to the priority of coverage.
The settlement was negotiated at the time of trial before Judge Moser by plaintiff's attorneys Robert E. Margulies and Clifford A. Herrington of Jersey City's Margulies, Wind, Herrington & Knopf, Dennis Carey of Dwyer, Connell and Lisbona, attorney for Tientsin Marine Shipping Co., Gerald Kaplan of Berlin, Kaplan, Dembling and Burke, attorney for PJT Transport and Cataldo Fazio attorney for Sea-Land.