{"id":229155,"date":"2026-06-26T21:23:55","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T21:23:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/229155\/"},"modified":"2026-06-26T21:23:55","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T21:23:55","slug":"interstate-78-tractor-trailer-crash-victims-family-sues-driver-companies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/229155\/","title":{"rendered":"Interstate 78 tractor-trailer crash victim’s family sues driver, companies"},"content":{"rendered":"

The family of a man fatally hit by a tractor-trailer last year in Northampton County<\/a> is suing the driver, who allegedly feel asleep behind the wheel, and the trucking companies he worked for.<\/p>\n

Tyler Kolaja\u2019s family on Monday filed a lawsuit in Philadelphia County Court via law firm Morgan & Morgan alleging the driver of the truck, Goce Josifoski, was fatigued and negligent when he hit Kolaja June 16, 2025, on Interstate 78 in Northampton County.<\/p>\n

Josifoski, 52, of Fords, New Jersey, was charged in April with homicide by vehicle in the crash<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit alleges Josifoski was over his service hours when his truck crashed into Kolaja, who was trying to push his SUV onto the shoulder of the highway after it broke down.<\/p>\n

The suit also alleges New Jersey-based Goce Enterprises and New York-based JP Express Services, the companies Josifoski was working for, were negligent in failing to monitor and regulate drivers\u2019 logs and hours of service.<\/p>\n

Kolaja was behind his SUV, pushing it after it stalled on I-78 near mile 74 in Glendon, when Josifoski hit him, killing him and damaging the car, as well as a vehicle disabled on the shoulder next to it, state police wrote in charging documents. Kolaja\u2019s vehicle had run out of gas, and he refueled it using a gas tank in his trunk.<\/p>\n

The SUV started again but stalled once they got on the road, police said. Kolaja got out of the vehicle to push it back onto the shoulder while his girlfriend steered. He was hit by the tractor-trailer then, according to authorities.<\/p>\n

Dashcam video from inside the tractor-trailer showed Josifoski\u2019s eyes closed, and that he \u201cappeared to be asleep\u201d for seven seconds before the crash, according to the lawsuit.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe safety of our highways depends on trucking companies and their drivers managing their workloads and limiting fatigue so they remain safe and alert at all times. Because of JP Express Service and their driver\u2019s alleged failure to do so, a young man was needlessly killed,\u201d Kolaja\u2019s family\u2019s attorneys John Morgan and Clancy Boylan said in a news release. \u201cMr. Kolaja\u2019s family hopes this lawsuit can save other families from experiencing the anguish of losing a loved one by compelling the defendants and the trucking industry at large to take crucial safety regulations more seriously.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kolaja had pulled over behind another tractor-trailer that was on the shoulder. The suit alleges that driver, Lobsang Tseten of New York, and the trucking company, Lobsang TNY, were negligent. Tseten had pulled over because the truck broke down; the lawsuit alleges he would not have been there had he conducted a pre-trip inspection.<\/p>\n

Josifoski remains free on $50,000 unsecured bail. None of the individual defendants or the companies had attorneys listed for them as of Friday afternoon.<\/p>\n

Attorney John Waldron, who is representing Josifoski in his criminal case, said there are a lot of moving parts to the case. He said what happened is a tragedy, but it is their position that he did not fall asleep.<\/p>\n

Trucker was asleep at wheel before crash that left man dead on I-78 in Northampton County, police say<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The family of a man fatally hit by a tractor-trailer last year in Northampton County is suing the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4857,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[153,155,154,46,2181,6290,38197,82971,182,139,434,2182,28,432,62056,10552,2429],"class_list":["post-229155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news","tag-courts","tag-easton","tag-easton-area","tag-forks-township","tag-glendon","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-northampton-county","tag-palmer-township","tag-pennsylvania","tag-top-stories-tmc","tag-west-easton","tag-williams-township","tag-wilson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=229155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229155\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=229155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=229155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}