An ironworker’s injury at a Downtown Jersey City high-rise construction project in 2017 left him unable to work. Living off a monthly $2,688 worker’s compensation check, he and his wife filed for bankruptcy two years later.
But Donald Hoiland’s financial outlook took a meteoric upturn when a Hudson County jury awarded him $5.3 million in compensatory damages, his attorney, Gerald Clark of the Clark Law Firm, said this week.
Hoiland was injured Nov. 2, 2017, at the 235 Grand St. construction site while working for the project’s general contractor, AJD Construction Co., according to court documents. Two years later Hoiland filed the lawsuit against AJD, the developer and other companies working on the $289 million project, dubbed 235 Grand, at the site of the former Hudson County Boys and Girls Club.
Hoiland and his wife filed for bankruptcy the same year. According to court documents, Hoiland had earned nearly $75,000 as an ironworker in 2017.
“We are pleased with the result obtained, which is rather modest given the trial proofs,” Clark said in a statement. “The insurance company and the lawyers they hired to represent the defendant fought us tooth and nail during the five years of this litigation