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Patrick Shopp of Port Monmouth was walking along the dock at the Belford Seafood Co-Op in early 2020 when a broken board dropped him six feet onto the deck of his boat, according to The New Jersey Law Journal.
He suffered a perforated colon, among other injuries, which required various surgeries over the following 15 months, the law journal reported.
Shopp, considered one of the Bayshore’s best crabbers, reportedly died of complications at Riverview Medical Center in Red Bank in June 2021. The Jersey City-born commercial fisherman and grandfather was only 54.
Shopp’s family filed suit against the cooperative, arguing that it failed to inspect the dock or keep it safe, the law journal reported.
Bedford reportedly countered that the individual fishermen were responsible for their own safety at the dock off the Sandy Hook Bay in Middletown at the northernmost portion of the Jersey Shore.
Both sides reached the settlement last month, according to the law journal.
“No amount of recovery could ever replace the loss to Mr. Shopp’s family,” attorney Christopher J. Conrad of Eichen Crutchlow Zaslow in Edison told the law journal, adding that perhaps the settlement provides “some comfort and closure as they attempt to move forward.”
SEE: Crabber's Fall From Dock Results in $2.75 Million Settlement (New Jersey Law Journal)
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