$1.2 Million Dram Shop Settlement for the Parents of a 17-Year-Old Killed by a Drunk Driver Doing 105 mph
After trial: The $1,215,000 total is the sum of four insurer payments reported by plaintiffs' counsel: $650,000 (Cap Specialty, for Antini's Bar), $450,000 (Arch, for Club 516), $100,000 (GEICO, the drunk driver's policy limit), and $15,000 (Progressive, the pickup driver's policy limit). Club 516's and both auto carriers' payments had been received by late January 2024; Antini's payment was pending when reported on February 9, 2024 and we did not confirm its receipt. The county in which the suit was filed was not reported; the crash occurred in Old Bridge, Middlesex County.
Won by Lomurro Munson LLC.
A 17-year-old Old Bridge High School student was riding in a friend's pickup on Englishtown Road in Old Bridge at about 3:50 a.m. on July 6, 2019 when an Acura traveling an estimated 105 mph hit the truck from behind. She was thrown from the pickup and died at the scene; the Acura's passenger also died, and its driver later blew a 0.193 and was sentenced to 17 years for aggravated manslaughter. Her parents' estate suit claimed two Old Bridge bars served him while visibly intoxicated, and on January 10, 2024 the bars' insurers agreed to pay $1.1 million on top of $115,000 already paid by the two drivers' auto carriers, for a total of $1,215,000.
What happened
Just before 4 a.m. on July 6, 2019, a GMC Sierra pickup was traveling about 40 mph on Englishtown Road in Old Bridge, New Jersey. Its driver, 20-year-old Jonathan Ortiz, had a 17-year-old friend riding with him, a member of Old Bridge High School's class of 2020. An Acura TL driven by 25-year-old Tristan Rodriguez came up behind them at a speed later estimated at 105 mph and slammed into the rear of the pickup. The girl was thrown from the truck and pronounced dead at the scene. Rodriguez's passenger, a 29-year-old Old Bridge woman, also died there. Ortiz was hospitalized.
Rodriguez was tested shortly after the crash and had a blood alcohol concentration of 0.193, more than twice the legal limit. He pleaded guilty to first-degree aggravated manslaughter, second-degree vehicular homicide, and fourth-degree assault by auto, and in September 2021 was sentenced to 17 years in state prison, with 85 percent to be served before parole eligibility and a 20-year license suspension on release.
The girl's parents brought a wrongful death and dram shop suit on behalf of her estate. Emeka Nkwuo of Lomurro Law in Freehold represented them together with Craig S. Laughlin of Gale & Laughlin in Hazlet. The suit named Rodriguez; Gem Set, doing business as Antini's Bar; and Sideline Lounge, doing business as Club 516, both in Old Bridge. It also named Ortiz, because the girl had not been wearing a seat belt in his truck.
The evidence against the first bar came from its own cameras. Video from Antini's showed a bartender serving Rodriguez at least eight drinks in under two hours, and the bartender testified there was no doubt in her mind that he was over the legal limit when she poured him a shot and a beer at last call. Rodriguez then drove to Club 516, where he was served one or two more beers before getting back behind the wheel. The estate's toxicologist, John Brick, opined that Rodriguez was served while visibly intoxicated at both establishments. The bars' expert, toxicologist Richard J. Hamilton, reviewed the same video and argued Rodriguez showed no visible signs of intoxication, the defense the New Jersey Dram Shop Act requires plaintiffs to overcome.
The auto carriers paid first. Progressive paid the full $15,000 on Ortiz's policy and GEICO paid the full $100,000 on Rodriguez's. On January 10, 2024, Antini's Bar agreed to pay $650,000 from its policy with Cap Specialty Insurance and Club 516 agreed to pay $450,000 from its Arch Insurance policy, bringing the total recovery for the estate to $1,215,000. Club 516's payment was received on January 22, 2024; Antini's payment was still outstanding when the settlement was reported the following month.
Defense counsel for the driver, the pickup driver, and the two bars did not respond to the New Jersey Law Journal's requests for comment.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
- 1.New Jersey Law Journal, February 9, 2024: $1,215,000 total settlement, January 10, 2024 agreements by Antini's Bar ($650,000) and Club 516 ($450,000), prior GEICO ($100,000) and Progressive ($15,000) payments, Emeka Nkwuo of Lomurro Law as co-counsel with Craig S. Laughlin, speeds, 0.193 BAC, bar video and bartender testimony, expert positions, defense counsel
- 2.New Jersey 101.5, September 7, 2021: crash at about 3:50 a.m. on Englishtown Road in Old Bridge, July 2019; 17-year-old Old Bridge High School student in the pickup and 29-year-old Acura passenger died at the scene; Tristan R. Rodriguez, 25, sentenced to 17 years for aggravated manslaughter, vehicular homicide and assault by auto
- 3.Patch, September 8, 2021: July 6, 2019 crash date, 20-year-old pickup driver hospitalized, sentence terms (85 percent before parole, 20-year license suspension), Middlesex County Prosecutor announcement
More proven verdicts from Lomurro Munson LLC
All Lomurro Munson LLC proven verdicts →A Monmouth County jury awarded John Fiore $6.5 million in compensatory damages and $11.15 million in punitive damages after a drug-impaired Highlight Motor Freight driver caused a multivehicle crash on Route 440 in Perth Amboy that killed another motorist and left Fiore unable to work.
Kristen Dondero was 31 weeks pregnant and under the care of a maternal-fetal specialist when Hackensack University Medical Center sent her home on September 6, 2018 with decreased fetal movement and early labor symptoms. She returned two days later and learned her son had died in utero; the delivery that followed tore her uterus and ended in an emergency hysterectomy, blood transfusions, and further surgery under an induced coma. After five years of litigation marked by the hospital's sworn denials that any internal review of her care existed, and an Appellate Division ruling that those denials could support a fraudulent concealment claim, HMH Hospitals Corp. agreed on July 1, 2025 to pay Kristen and Andrew Dondero $6.8 million. The case against the obstetrician and his practice continued.
Philip Pantano, a refrigeration mechanic at a shared shipping yard on Doremus Avenue in Newark, lost his left foot after a forklift operator on an affiliated trucking company's payroll dropped a container generator on it in November 2013. A Middlesex County jury in December 2019 found the operator 70 percent at fault and awarded $1,230,000, molded to $861,000. The trial judge then threw the verdict out on the theory that the operator was a borrowed employee of Pantano's own employer, which would have barred the claim. The Appellate Division reinstated the verdict in 2022, and the New Jersey Supreme Court affirmed in June 2023, ordering a final judgment for the Pantanos.
Related wrongful death verdicts
A Pensacola jury awarded Cynthia Robinson $23.6 billion in punitive damages against R.J. Reynolds over the 1996 lung cancer death of her 36-year-old husband, the largest single-plaintiff award of Florida's Engle tobacco litigation, but the trial judge called the number constitutionally excessive, an appeals court ordered a full retrial over improper closing arguments, and a second jury returned a complete defense verdict in 2019, so the estate ultimately collected nothing.
Frantz Law Group, representing roughly 5,000 victims, helped negotiate a $13.5 billion PG&E bankruptcy settlement covering tens of thousands of survivors and families from the 2015 Butte, 2017 North Bay, and 2018 Camp wildfires.
Leavitt, Yamane and Soldner represented Maui wildfire survivors and victims' families in the $4.037 billion global settlement resolving approximately 450 lawsuits arising from the August 2023 Lahaina fire.
A Polk County jury awarded $110 million in compensatory damages and $1 billion in punitive damages over the death of 69-year-old Arlene Townsend, who fell 17 times at the Auburndale Oaks Healthcare Center, in a Wilkes & McHugh case against Trans Healthcare entities that had defaulted, stopped defending, and were already insolvent and in receivership, which is why the judgment was largely symbolic and the estate ultimately recovered only a small share of a later multi-estate settlement.