Court Opinion

ID: 9699339
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 20:20:01.855438+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:48.904355
License: Public Domain

*389Conford, P. J. A. D.
(temporarily assigned), dissenting. The Court’s action here is little short of judicial assumption of the exclusive legislative function of determining when and under what circumstances public money shall be paid out of the State Treasury. It is therefore completely unwarranted —• a fact not at all tempered by the sympathy all of us feel for any victim of violent crime such as this unfortunate young woman. In creating the administrative machinery for public compensation of victims of violent crime, the Legislature has clearly and unambiguously directed:
No order for the payment of compensation shall he made under section 10 of this act unless the application has been made within I year after the date of the personal injury or death, and the personal injury or death was the result of an offense listed in section II of this act which had been reported to the police within 3 months after its occurrence. * '* * (emphasis added)
N. J. S. A. 52:4B-18
The Court concedes, as perforce it must, that the “statutory restriction on the timely filing of applications with the Board is a substantive condition on the victim’s eligibility for compensation * * Maj. opinion, pp. 375-376. The condition not having been fulfilled, and payment of public funds being involved, this concession should have been dispositive of the case, as the Appellate Division correctly held. In accord: Johnson v. Nissman, 39 A. D. 2d 578, 331 N. Y. S. 2d 796 (App. Div. 1972), where, after the passage of the statutory time for filing claims against a similar board, the court declared the petitioner’s claim barred, “and no other provision of law or consideration of justice can operate to toll its application.” 331 N. Y. S. 2d at 797. Motivations of fiscal restraint, administrative convenience and minimization of fraudulent claims could entirely reasonably have induced the unconditional time limitations for claims set forth in the statute.
But the Court undertakes to read into the statute a tolling of the one-year limitation on filing of claims for the period of a victim’s “crime-induced incapacity.” Maj. opinion, p. 384. *390Such a provision might conceivably have been a salutary stipulation to insert into the legislation, but the law-making body for its own good reasons did not choose that course. That the Legislature was alert to the availability of such an amelioration of the time constraint is indicated by express provisions of that or comparable nature in the Unsatisfied Claim and Judgment Eund Law, N. J. S. A. 39 :6-65, and the Tort Claims Act, N. J. S. A. 59 :8-9; and see S. E. W. Friel Co. v. N. J. Turnpike, 73 N. J. 107 (1977). The closeness in time of the legislative adoption of the latter act and the one here involved (1972 and 1971, respectively) and the fact that both involve authorization of claims against public agencies highlight the cogency of the observation that had the lawmakers intended relaxation or tolling of the time filing requirement of the crime victim compensation act in cases of incapacity of the victim they would surely have so expressly specified.
My conclusion is additionally fortified by the consideration that the lawmakers must be presumed to have realized that a person injured by a criminal will likely be physically incapacitated for a time, and despite that consideration they elected not to allow tolling of the claim time period for physical incapacity of the victim.
Legislative history is additionally supportive of these views. A predecessor bill, Senate 284 (1966), would have allowed 90 days for filing, “except where unusual circumstances preclude the applicant from so doing.” Another Would have allowed two years for filing after the crime or the victim’s death. Assembly 22 (1966). As we know, these more liberal approaches were rejected for a rigid, unconditional claim period of one year. There has from the beginning been distinct evidence of legislative conservatism in appropriating funds for disbursement by the Board.1 There *391is thus no basis whatever for inferring a legislative intent to disburse funds for claims not filed strictly within the statutory period, but ample grounds to assume the contrary, concordant with the express statutory mandate.
The Court’s action here is distinctly repugnant to the spirit if not the letter of the constitutional principle of immunity of the State to pecuniary claims not expressly authorized by the Legislature. N. J. Const. 1947, Art. 8, § 2, par. 2. See O'Neill v. State Hwy. Dept., 50 N. J. 307, 315-316 & 316, n. 1 (1967); Taylor v. N. J. Highway Authority, 22 N. J. 454, 466 (1956); Gallena v. Scott, 11 N. J. 231 (1953); cf. Willis et al. v. Dept. of Cons. & Ec. Dev., 55 N. J. 534 (1970).
Further, the action of the Court portends a signal for the coming forward of any number of the myriad victims of crime who did not file within a year, and thus have properly been advised they were barred, but who may now flood the Board with assertions that their failure timely to file was the result of crime-induced incapacity. The administrative difficulties with which the Board will consequently be faced seem formidable and to project the possibility that the limited funds of the Board will not be most effectively deployed for the relief of the class intended to be aided.
This case is classic evidence of the aphorism that hard cases make bad law.
I dissent. I would affirm the judgment of the Appellate Division.
Justice Clifford joins in this dissenting opinion.
Justice Schreiber dissents.
For reversal and remandment — Chief Justice Hughes and Justices Sullivan, Pashman and Handler — 4.
For affirmance — Justices Clifford and Schreiber and Judge Conford — 3.

The Board’s appropriation for fiscal year 1977-1978 is $1,235,255. Of this, $1,078,000 is earmarked for claims already filed. N. J. Appropriation Handbook 59 (1977-1978).