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Rutherford High School teammate Jason Bille was behind the wheel when his sister’s car spun around at a dangerous curve and hit a tree shortly after 6 p.m. Sept. 15, 1999, three days before the Bulldogs’ first game of the season.
Alex Pluchino, who was in back without his seat belt on, suffered brain damage when he smashed his head. After emerging from a coma, the once-strapping ballplayer amazingly learned to walk, talk and muscle up all over again.
Pluchino sued the school board, alleging negligence for failing to cancel football practice despite predictions that Hurricane Flood was on its way and for allowing him to ride home with an uninsured driver.
He also went after the county, blaming it for the “inherently dangerous condition of the curve at the accident site.”
A Superior Court judge in Hackensack didn’t even let the case go to trial. Ruling in favor of the defendants, the judge said the weather wasn’t bad that day. She also said that the curve at southbound Jackson Avenue in Rutherford could have used better warning signs, but that they would have had nothing do with the crash.
Pluchino appealed, and a higher court this week affirmed the trial judge’s decision.
Pluchino sued Bille and his sister, but withdrew that action after discovering that they were uninsured. He subsequently settled an uninsured motorist claim against his carrier for nearly $3 million.
Pluchino then sued the Board and the County, but all agreed to dismiss the suit following an appeals court rejection in November 2004.
A second suit followed.
Pluchino said school officials should have cancelled practice once then-Gov. Christie Whitman issued a state of emergency based on the impending storm, and that they shouldn’t have let him get in Bille’s car. The county should have done a better job of posting signs on the dangerous curve, he added.
But the judge bounced that case, saying the weather wasn’t a threat at the time practice ended and that the county was immune under law from such a claim.
“There is no evidence in the record that Hurricane Floyd actually caused ‘severe weather conditions’ in New Jersey on September 15, particularly in the northern part of the State in which Bergen County is located,” the judge wrote.
In fact, Rutherford High School Coach Gary Andolena testified that it was “a rainy day, but nothing out of the ordinary.” Less than a quarter of an inch had fallen by the time of the accident, records show.
It was until the next day that Floyd hit North Jersey hard, dumping nearly 7 inches in the Meadowlands area.
The coach said most players in the relatively small district got rides home from their parents if they didn’t drive themselves home. The school never got involved in their transportation.
Accounts differed whether Bille was speeding or not on southbound Jackson Avenue, a county road. It was still daylight, and there was “a large yellow warning sign with a black arrow indicating a ninety-degree turn, below which there was a smaller yellow and black sign indicating an advisory speed of twenty miles per hour,” the judge wrote.
“There were also smaller white and black signs with chevrons, indicating a curve ahead,” she said.
In rejecting Pluchino’s appeal, the higher court noted that no emergency measures were taken by the superintendent of the State Police that fateful day. No one ordered “or even recommended” closing any schools or roadways, the judges wrote. Insisting football practice should have been cancelled “amounted to nothing more than a net opinion,” the appeals court ruled.
And while schools are responsible for their students’ care, it “does not extend to providing transportation in a ‘walking’ school district” such as Rutherford’s, the judges found. What’s more, they said, Pluchino’s parents didn’t regularly take him to and from school, nor did they prohibit him from taking rides home from fellow students.
The appeals panel also said the county had taken adequate enough steps to warn motorists of what was a dangerous curve even in dry conditions.
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