Haines v. Taft

In a consolidated appeal, the New Jersey Supreme Court considered one central issue: whether the New Jersey Legislature intended to deviate from its highly regulated no-fault system of first-party self-insurance to cover medical expenses arising from automobile accidents when it amended the statutory scheme to allow an insured to elect smaller amounts of personal injury protection (PIP) under a standard policy. Each plaintiff in this appeal was injured in a car accident. Each was insured under a standard policy with insurance that provided for $15,000 in PIP coverage instead of the default amount of $250,000. Neither was able to sustain a claim for bodily injury (noneconomic loss) due to each policy’s limitation-on-lawsuit option. Each sued for outstanding medical bills in excess of their elected PIP coverage ($28,000 and $10,000, respectively). The trial courts ruled against plaintiffs in each matter and prohibited plaintiffs from admitting evidence of their medical expenses that exceeded their $15,000 PIP limits. The Appellate Division consolidated the cases on appeal, and, in a published opinion, reversed both trial court orders. After its review, the Supreme Court could not concluded there was evidence of a clear intention on the part of the Legislature to deviate from the carefully constructed no-fault first-party PIP system of regulated coverage of contained medical expenses and return to fault-based suits consisting solely of economic damages claims for medical expenses in excess of an elected lesser amount of available PIP coverage. "Unless the Legislature makes such an intent clearly known, the Court will not assume that such a change was intended by the Legislature through its amendments to the no-fault system in the Automobile Insurance Cost Reduction Act." View "Haines v. Taft" on Justia Law