In Henry v. Community Coach, an Englewood woman will receive $975,000 as compensation for injuries she sustained when the bus on which she was riding was struck  by a car.

Plaintiff Marlene Henry, 61, agreed to the settlement with the carriers for defendants Community Coach bus service and its driver, Herode Charles, and Anie Gerber of Fairview, on Oct. 16, after a settlement conference with Bergen County Superior Court Judge Lisa Perez-Friscia, said Henry's attorney, Todd Siegel.

Henry was injured on May 5, 2014. She was a passenger on the Community Coach bus, which was traveling on a through street within the Riverside Square Mall in Hackensack, said Siegel, of Siegel & Siegel in Teaneck, who handled the case with Bertram Siegel of the same firm.

Gerber, according to Siegel, was exiting from a parking lot and failed to yield, and her car struck the bus. Siegel said Henry was thrown from her seat and sustained a torn meniscus in her right knee that required arthroscopic surgery. She also sustained herniated discs that required chiropractic care, then pain management with steroid epidural injections in the cervical and lumbar spine, he said. On Dec. 22, 2016, she underwent lumbar laminectomy and fusion with the placement of a hardware, Siegel said.

Henry worked as a home health aide and continued to work during the year and a half following the accident, but has not returned to work following her spine surgery, Siegel said.

State Farm Insurance Co., the carrier for Gerber, agreed to pay $900,000; Greenwich Insurance Co., the carrier for Community Coach, will pay $75,000, Siegel said.

State Farm retained Cynthia Satter of the Law Offices of Stephen Gertler in Wall, to represent Gerber. Greenwich retained John Hockin of Ronan, Tuzzio & Giannone in Tinton Falls.

Satter did not return a call about the case. Hockin said he could not confirm the amount of the settlement.

Trial had been scheduled to begin Nov. 28, Seigel said.

— Michael Booth

Tenant's Fall Nets $850,000

Triano v. J&M Decorator Inc.: An elderly woman injured in her apartment in a fall caused by water leaking from a unit above settled her Hudson County suit for $850,000 on Oct. 18.

On the morning of May 2, 2017, Josephine B. Triano, then 91, was in her apartment at River View Gardens in North Arlington and saw that water was leaking into her kitchen from an overhead light fixture. She went upstairs and found in the hallway a painter who was doing work at the complex, and alerted him to the leak, which was found to be caused by water overflowing from a sink stopped by a sponge in a unit above Triano's, according to her lawyer, Anthony Riposta of Riposta Lawyers in North Arlington.

Triano returned to her unit and began to clean up the water in her kitchen, and while doing so she slipped and fell. She sustained a comminuted fracture to her left femur. The painter discovered Triano on her kitchen floor soon after, Riposta said.

Triano underwent surgery, including internal fixation with hardware, and while hospitalized she developed a leg ulcer that required about three months of in-patient care, Riposta said.

Triano's suit named the apartment owner, Samuel Geltman & Co., and the painting contractor hired to do the work at the complex, J&M Decorator Inc. of Kearny. J&M indemnified the property owner per the terms of the work contract, according to Riposta.

The parties were in discovery, prior to depositions, when they agreed to settle for $850,000 of J&M's $1 million policy, he said.

Thomas Decker of Decker & Magaw in Westfield, who represented the defendants, didn't return a call about the case.

— David Gialanella