In a settlement finalized May 2, two cousins who were permanently injured when their vehicle was struck from behind by a drunken driver recovered a total of $2.05 million in their Middlesex County suit, from the driver and the bar where he was drinking in the hours leading up to the accident.

Shortly after midnight on Dec. 29, 2013, Sora Newman and Shulamis Gorelick were rear-seat passengers in a vehicle driven by their grandmother on U.S. Route 9 south in Old Bridge, according to attorneys involved in the case.

Another motorist, Farhad Qamar-Yousufzai, approached at a higher rate of speed from behind and hit the plaintiffs' vehicle, which was sent off the road and struck a pole, said Newman's lawyer, Adam Epstein of Mazie Slater Katz & Freeman in Roseland.