A former State Police trooper’s special disability pension was denied by a New Jersey appeals court, which ruled that his own careless driving was the cause of the collision that left him permanently crippled.
On April 3, 2017, Jeffrey Almeida was critically hurt when his patrol cruiser struck a tree in the Somerset County median of Interstate 78.
Almeida, who was 26 at the time, was traveling above 100 miles per hour without a siren and without answering any known emergency calls, according to the State Police Retirement System Board, which the appeals court agreed with.
The court determined that his actions qualified him for increased disability retirement benefits because they constituted deliberate carelessness.
According to the appeals court, the unfortunate catastrophe rendered him fully and entirely incapacitated.
In order to receive bigger payouts than a regular disability pension, Almeida applied for accidental disability retirement benefits.
Accidental disability benefits would have made up 72.7% of the member’s total compensation, whereas ordinary disability benefits normally make up 40%.
However, the State Police Retirement System Board turned down his plea, claiming that Almeida’s carelessness was to blame for the collision.
The appeals court decided that investigators could not find any dispatch data that showed he was chasing a suspect or answering a call at the time.
Almeida’s expert witness contended that he had slowed down prior to the collision and was probably attempting to start a traffic stop.
Nonetheless, the court determined that the accident was mostly caused by his excessive speed and inability to keep control of the car.
The court acknowledged that the incident was caused in part by another driver who unlawfully pulled to the left rather than the right to yield.
However, it determined that the accident was mostly caused by Almeida’s activities.
Therefore, instead of receiving the greater accidental disability pension, Almeida will receive regular disability retirement payments.
A request for comment from his lawyer was not immediately answered, and Almeida declined to comment on the court’s decision.
The Attorney General’s Office in New Jersey, which represented the State Police Retirement System Board, similarly refrained from commenting on the matter.
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