Court Opinion

ID: 9697620
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 19:23:14.931547+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:33.780636
License: Public Domain

Justice RIVERA-SOTO,
concurring in the result.
I concur in the judgment of this Court that the 1998 Automobile Insurance Cost Reduction Act (AICRA), N.J.S.A 39:6A-1 to -35, does not contain the “serious life impact” requirement engrafted on its predecessor statute by Oswin v. Shaw, 129 N.J. 290, 609 A.2d 415 (1992). Although principled arguments can be marshaled to support the proposition that AICRA implicitly incorporates Oswin’s serious life impact requirement — as the Court does in Part V of its opinion, ante, 183 N.J. 496-506, 874 A.2d at 1050-*50757, as the Appellate Division did here, in James v. Torres, 354 N.J.Super. 586, 808 A.2d 873 (App.Div.2002), certif. denied, 175 N.J. 547, 816 A.2d 1049 (2003), and in Rios v. Szivos, 354 N.J.Super. 578, 808 A.2d 868 (App.Div.2002), and with which I would prefer to agree — those arguments do not overcome the plain language of AICRA, language that does not admit of an ambiguity and that does not require that its statutorily enumerated serious injuries for which recovery is available also must satisfy an unstated but previously mandated serious life impact requirement.
In the final analysis, Judge Weissbard, in dissent below, succinctly summarized the core issue when he observed that “[i]f the Legislature failed to effectuate its true intent (whatever that may be), it is for the Legislature, not us, to correct the situation.” If the Legislature intended that AICRA include Oswin’s serious life impact requirement as a predicate to recovery, then the cure is straightforward: it can amend N.J.S.A. 39:6A:8 to include that requirement. On the other hand, if the Legislature did not intend to transplant the serious life impact requirement of Oswin into AICRA, our decision today implements that legislative mandate. In either event, the issue now lies where it properly belongs: before the Legislature.
For reversal and remandment — Chief Justice PORITZ and Justices LONG, ZAZZALI, ALBIN, WALLACE and RIVERA-SOTO — 6.
Opposed — None.