Court Opinion

ID: 9532312
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:20:15.028761+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:43.955176
License: Public Domain

PASHMAN, J.,
concurring.
It was Justice Holmes who said, “if it is a bad rule, that is no reason for making a bad exception to it.” Ayer v. Philadelphia & Boston Face Brick Co., 159 Mass. 84, 88, 34 N.E. 177, 178 (1893). This is why I feel compelled to concur in the judgment of the Court, although my inclinations are otherwise. The Court fails to acknowledge adequately the unfairness that can result because of the way the Legislature wrote the PIP survivor benefits provision, N.J.S.A. 39:6A-4(d).
The parents of decedent Elaine Skolny, who are the co-administrators of her estate, have seen their young daughter suffer through an unsuccessful marriage, have lived with the anguish and pain of her death in an auto accident, and must now watch as her undeserving ex-husband, Edward McGrory, reaps a $23,-000 windfall by her death. I believe the Legislature failed to consider such a situation when it enacted the survivor benefits provision of the PIP statute. While I agree with the essentials of the Court’s opinion, our judgment must be explained in different terms lest the Court’s reluctance to discuss the inequities inherent in the statute be taken as acquiescence in them.
Although the parties remained legally married until Elaine Skolny’s death, in practical terms the marriage lasted for only nine months, from August 1974 to May 1975 when the couple separated. No children were born of the marriage. Following the separation, Elaine Skolny resumed the use of her maiden name and moved back into the home of her parents and brother *120and sister. She lived there until her death, contributing to the household expenses. In January 1976, she executed a holographic will, ultimately admitted to probate, expressing specifically an intent to prevent her estranged husband from sharing in any benefits under her estate. In July 1976, more than a year after the separation, she purchased an auto insurance policy from Allstate Insurance Company. This policy was issued in her maiden name; Edward McGrory was not included as a named insured or mentioned in any other way.
On March 8, 1977 Elaine Skolny filed a complaint for divorce on the ground of 18 months’ separation with no reasonable prospect for reconciliation. She did not seek alimony or equitable distribution in her complaint, making specific demands only for dissolution of the marriage and resumption of her maiden name. McGrory failed to answer the complaint and a default was entered against him in April 1977. The divorce trial was set for June 14, 1977, but just ten days prior to it Elaine Skolny was killed in an auto accident, before her marriage could be legally dissolved by a court. McGrory remarried within weeks of her death, in August 1977.
Her estate sought recovery of all PIP benefits under the auto insurance policy. It also notified McGrory of his potential interest in those benefits. Subsequently, Allstate brought this interpleader action to determine whether it should make the PIP payments to the estate or to McGrory. Under our decision today, the estate will retain the $1,000 it has already been paid by Allstate for funeral expenses; McGrory will receive the remaining $23,000 income continuation and death benefits.
The unfairness of the outcome cannot be denied; yet we must reach this result because the statute leaves no room for the intervention of equity in a way that will not bring about unfairness in other cases.
The statute establishes a clear succession for payment of survivor benefits:
*121to the surviving spouse, or in the event there is no surviving spouse, then to the surviving children, and in the event there are no surviving spouse or surviving children, then to the estate of the income producer. [N.J.S.A. 39:6A-4(d)]
As originally enacted, the statute allowed only dependent spouses and children to recover survivor benefits. L.1972, e. 70, § 4(d). The dependency prerequisite was later deleted. L.1972, c. 203, § 3. The Legislature probably believed that requiring the beneficiary to prove dependency would hinder the goal of the PIP statute of providing prompt payment of benefits without factual disputes and without the need for judicial intervention.
The resulting statute, therefore, requires that a beneficiary prove only that he was a spouse or child of the deceased insured. While this simplified scheme aids the goal of prompt, uncontested payments, it takes no account of the many turns which family relationships can take. A person’s status as a spouse or child of a deceased insured may have little relation to whether he should receive survivor benefits under an insurance policy. For example, an insured widower who has supported his elderly sister for a number of years may understandably desire that in the event of his death in an auto accident, his dependent sister would enjoy the benefits. If those benefits belonged to his estate, he could include a provision in his will to carry out this desire. But under the PIP statute, a surviving child of the insured, even if he had not had any contact with the insured for many years, would have a superior right to the insurance benefits. The statute treats all claims as if they grew out of the “typical family” situation, where spouses mutually share in each other’s income and support their minor, dependent children. This indiscriminate treatment of all claims makes the survivor benefits provision the “bad rule” of Justice Holmes’ aphorism.
Any reasonable attempt, however, to apply equitable principles to this case and thus allow the estate to receive the survivor benefits would create the troubling “bad exception.” We cannot construe the statute as enacted to include a dependency *122requirement.1 Not only would such a construction be contrary to the legislative history of the statute but it would also obstruct the goal of prompt payment in the “typical family” situation. We cannot read a requirement into the statute that beneficiaries must reside with the decedent. Such a reading would unjustifiedly qualify the actual terms of the statute and would unduly limit the eligible class of beneficiaries.
Finally, we cannot define the word “spouse” in the statute to mean only a spouse until marital breakup, as defined by our cases relevant to equitable distribution in divorce actions, e. g., Brandenburg v. Brandenburg, 83 N.J. 198 (1980); Painter v. Painter, 65 N.J. 196 (1974). As the Court observes, restricting the definition of “spouse” in this way might inject matrimonial disputes into claims for insurance benefits, contrary to legislative intent. Ante at 116-117. While I do not agree that the resolution of such factual disputes would necessarily hinder the goal of prompt payment any more than resolution of the kinds of factual disputes the Court accepts in Gambino v. Royal Globe Insurance Co., 86 N.J. 100 (1981), also decided today, I believe that such a restricted definition of “spouse” would harm other, more deserving spouses. It would prevent recovery of survivor benefits by a dependent spouse who, although living separately and awaiting a divorce judgment, relies on the income of the insured for economic support. The Legislature might reasonably intend that such a dependent spouse whose source of support has ceased with the death of the insured supporting spouse would receive mandatory insurance compensation.
Left with no acceptable construction of the statute that would serve the ends of equity not only in this case but in other cases as well, we are forced to apply the statute mechanically as the Legislature wrote it and without regard to who should in fairness receive the benefits.
*123Yet I believe that the Legislature could have designed a more equitable scheme for entitlement to PIP survivor benefits if it had considered a case such as this. As the law now stands, the State compels all car owners to purchase insurance, N.J.S.A. 39:6A-3, and further dictates who can benefit from that insurance. To the extent that the beneficiaries designated by the State are somehow entitled to the benefits under principles of equity, I find no fault with the legislative scheme. But when a statute indiscriminately assigns benefits contrary to the wishes of the person purchasing the insurance and does so without regard to whether the beneficiary might be deserving, the Legislature ought to reconsider its choices.2 Because the options do belong to the Legislature rather than this Court, we must allow a husband, who should receive nothing under all principles of equity, to gain a substantial reward upon the death of his estranged wife.
PASHMAN, J., concurring in the result.
*124For affirmance — Chief Justice WILENTZ and Justices SULLIVAN, PASHMAN, CLIFFORD, SCHREIBER, HANDLER and POLLOCK — 7.
For reversal —None.

The parties stipulated that McGrory received no benefits from Elaine Skolny after their separation and therefore was not a dependent spouse.

To illustrate, the statute could have provided that a spouse or child would be entitled to survivor benefits if he was either a resident of the same household or a dependent of the deceased insured. A showing of residency in the same household is neither burdensome nor antithetical to the goals of the PIP statute. Persons protected by the PIP coverage are defined with reference to whether they reside with the insured. See N.J.S.A. 39:6A-4. Such a residency requirement would allow beneficiaries in the “typical family” situation to recover promptly and without raising factual disputes. The dependency requirement as an alternative to residency would be somewhat more burdensome but would apply only to spouses and children living separately from the insured. The additional burdens would be justified by the prospect of fairer distribution of the insurance benefits.
A second option for the Legislature is to define “spouse” restrictively, according to the definition of the duration of marriage in our equitable distribution cases. As I have said, this option might work a hardship on dependent spouses, but their recourse might be in the matrimonial courts, as with others whose source of support has ceased with the death of the supporting spouse. Cf. Olen v. Melia, 141 N.J.Super. 111 (App.Div.1976) (equitable distribution following death of one of the parties in a divorce action).