The New York Jets and cornerback Brandin Echols have been hit with a New Jersey suit over a crash that allegedly left a man seriously injured.
Stephen J. Gilberg claims in his suit, filed Friday in Middlesex County Superior Court, that he was driving on Columbia Turnpike in Florham Park on April 26, 2022, when Echols’ car struck his vehicle at an excessively high speed.
The crash took place about two miles from the Jets’ practice facility, and Gilberg’s suit claims Echols took negligent and improper actions while he was within the scope of his employment with the Jets or serving as the team’s agent, servant or employee.
The suit claims the Jets are liable for the negligent or improper acts of Echols under principles of agency or respondeat superior.
The suit also claims the Jets had an obligation to implement and enforce personal conduct policies relative to Echols and to make sure these personal conduct policies were implemented, followed and complied with at all times.
The Jets “had an obligation to properly hire, train, supervise, manage and oversee all their agents, servants and employees, including defendant, Brandin M. Echols, in the scope of their employment with it, including, but not limited to, their conduct on and off the playing field and while operating their vehicles to and from the New York Jets Training site,” the suit claims.
The Jets did not respond to a request for comment about the suit. An attorney for Echols, Mitchell Schuster of Meister Seelig & Fein, also did not respond.
Nicholas Leonardis of Stathis & Leonardis in Edison, New Jersey, who represents Gilberg, declined to discuss his theory of liability for the Jets. But Leonardis said he obtained video showing the accident from an oncoming vehicle equipped with a video camera.
“This was pretty egregious conduct. It’s a pretty violent impact. And we have reason to believe it’s not the first time that [Echols] operated his vehicle with this kind of conduct,” Leonardis said.
Echols’ car was found to be equipped with a device that allows the driver to push a button in the car to conceal its license plate, Leonardis said.
“If you’re a commonsense kind of person, you would say, ‘Well, why would a person who has a 700 horsepower car want to have something that conceals their license plate? So if an officer is coming or if you’re going through an EZPass, they don’t have your plate.’ I found that rather interesting that someone would have that,” Leonardis said.
The case was first surfaced by Law.com Radar, ALM’s source for immediate alerting on just-filed cases in federal and state courts. Law.com Radar now offers state court coverage nationwide. Sign up today and be among the first to know about new suits in your region, practice area or client sector.
Echols was charged with assault by auto but was accepted into a pretrial intervention program that could result in the charges being dismissed, according to a March 10 report in The Daily Record. Gilberg was left partly paralyzed from the crash, the report said.
Echols and Gilberg were both headed east when Echols was driving in such a manner and at such a high rate of speed that he lost control of his vehicle, entered Gilberg’s travel lane, and struck his vehicle, the suit claims. Gilberg’s vehicle struck the curb, was catapulted into the air, striking and going over a guardrail, overturned and landed on its roof in a marshy area, the suit claims.
The suit alleges Echols “has a history and pattern of operating his motor vehicle in a willful, wanton, reckless, intentional and malicious manner, including operating his vehicle at excessively high rates of speed. In addition, defendant[‘s] conduct described above, along with his actions and behavior were performed knowingly, intentionally, and maliciously, and were grossly negligent, and defendant acted with a reckless disregard for the safety of others and with knowledge of a high degree of probability of harm to another including the plaintiff, Stephen J. Gilberg.”
“The actions, conduct and behavior of defendant … rise to a punitive level as defined by the New Jersey Punitive Damages Act, entitling plaintiff to punitive damages,” the suit says.
The Daily Record said Echols’ car, a 2021 Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat, has 797 horsepower and a top speed of 196 mph, going from 0-60 mph in 3.6 seconds. Just before the crash, he was allegedly driving at 84 mph, far in excess of the 50 mph speed limit, the publication said. The Daily Record reported that Gilberg allegedly had broken ribs and a spinal cord injury that resulted in no feeling or movement in both hands or his right leg.
