Plaintiff Aiyonna Daniels was struck and injured by defendant Chaunsa Bussey’s motor vehicle while she was attempting to cross a T-intersection of a two-lane road with a four-lane road. She characterized this area as qualifying as an “unmarked crosswalk.” The issue in Daniels v. Bussey, 2025 N.J. Super. Unpub. LEXIS 1159 (App. Div. June 26, 2025) was whether the trial judge made a mistake in refusing to charge the jury of the duty of an automobile driver in yielding the right-of-way to a pedestrian crossing the roadway in an “unmarked crosswalk.”
The plaintiff was attempting to cross from Mainbridge Lane, a two-lane street, across Levitt Parkway, a four-lane roadway, in Willingboro, New Jersey when she was struck by defendant’s vehicle. These two roads form a T-intersection. At that intersection, the four lanes of Levitt Parkway are bisected by a grassy median. There was no sidewalk on either side at Levitt Parkway or the median where the plaintiff was attempting to cross.
However, there was a crosswalk across Mainbridge Lane with a crosswalk across Levitt Parkway, just a short distance away. Plaintiff did not follow that path. Rather, she was walking on the sidewalk along Mainbridge Lane, stepped off of that corner into an unmarked area and attempted to cross the four lanes of Levitt Parkway directly when the accident happened.
The case went to trial and the parties conferred with the judge as to what law the judge should charge the jury with as to the obligations of the plaintiff, as a pedestrian, and the defendant as the motorist. The defendant disputed that the area where plaintiff crossed constituted an “unmarked crosswalk.” Further the defendant objected to a jury charge which stated that a driver of a vehicle must yield to a pedestrian crossing at either a marked crosswalk or an unmarked crosswalk.
In analyzing this situation, the judge refused to accept the plaintiff’s position that the area where plaintiff crossed Levitt Parkway constituted “an unmarked crossing” and accepted defendant’s position that the jury should not be charged with the law that would govern a driver’s obligations when a pedestrian crossed the roadway at an “unmarked crosswalk.”
After deliberations, the jury returned a verdict in favor of defendant, finding defendant was not negligent. This appeal ensued.
The plaintiff argued that the trial court judge did not charge the jury with the appropriate law and should have charged the jury that the driver of a motor vehicle must yield the right-of-way to a pedestrian crossing the roadway within a marked crosswalk or within any unmarked crosswalk at an intersection.
The Appellate Division found that the area where plaintiff crossed did not constitute an “unmarked crosswalk” or an area to be considered an unmarked crosswalk. Under New Jersey law, there must be sidewalks on both sides of the streets that run laterally for the area to qualify as an “unmarked crosswalk.” Here, for the court to consider that the area where she crossed was an unmarked crosswalk, sidewalks needed to be present on both sides of Levitt Parkway, but there were no such sidewalks present.
Further, the Appellate Division noted that [because] Levitt Parkway did not have the necessary constructed components, the statute does not permit the inference of an unmarked crosswalk at that location.” Thus, the Court found that the charge selected by the trial judge and provided to the jury was appropriate and reflected the “factual reality” of the area of the accident. Hence, the Appellate Division affirmed the trial court decision, leaving in place the jury verdict in favor of defendant.
