Court Opinion

ID: 9717931
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 07:13:01.250751+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:56.172361
License: Public Domain

POLLOCK, J.,
dissenting.
If courts could extend personal-injury-protection (PIP) benefits without regard to the intent of the Legislature, I might join the majority opinion. Likewise, I would be tempted to join the majority if courts were free to shift the risk of loss from a gravely injured plaintiff to an insurer and its policyholders. Believing that it enjoys that freedom, the majority extends PIP benefits to victims of random, drive-by shootings, notwithstanding its acknowledgment that N.J.S.A. 39:6-4 “was not designed to function as general crime insurance.” Ante at 253, 649 A.2d at 1277. I respectfully dissent.
My disagreement with the majority arises from its conclusion that because the bullet that injured plaintiff was “an object ... propelled ... from an automobile,” L.1988, c. 119, § 3 (codified at N.J.S.A. 39:6A-4), plaintiffs medical expenses are covered PIP benefits. Only by ignoring the inescapable fact that the bullet was propelled from a gun can the majority sustain its conclusion. Presumably, the majority believes that the shooting occurred while the assailant was sitting inside an automobile. Would the majority reach the same result if the assailant had fired the gun *254while holding it outside the automobile? If he had temporarily stepped outside the automobile, leaned the gun against it, and fired? Or if he had shot while momentarily outside the vehicle? If so, how long need the assailant be outside the automobile before an injured party may be denied PIP benefits from his or her own insurer? From my perspective, the Legislature never intended PIP benefits to extend to any of those situations or, more importantly, to the present case.
As the majority acknowledges, the Legislature intended to provide PIP benefits for injuries either caused by an automobile or that were “a reasonable consequence of the use of an automobile and one against which the parties would expect protection.” Ante at 250, 649 A.2d at 1276. I doubt that the Legislature ever intended for injured parties to recover PIP benefits when the automobile was merely an attending circumstance. Nor do I believe that reasonably objective insureds believe that their PIP benefits cover random, drive-by shootings.
The majority, however, believes that it can fit such shootings by strangers into the statutory language. Relying on Sheeran v. Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co., 80 N.J. 548, 556, 404 A.2d 625 (1979) (quoting Sears, Roebuck & Co. v. United States, 504 F.2d 1400, 1402 (C.C.P.A.1974)), it argues that “where the Legislature has ‘made a choice of language [that] fairly brings a given situation within a statute, it is unimportant that the particular application may not have been contemplated by the legislators.’ ” Ante at 248, 649 A.2d at 1275. For the majority, the words of the statute are both the means and the end of statutory interpretation. To this extent, the majority permits statutory language to trump legislative purpose.
Judge Learned Hand, however, once warned: “There is no surer way to misread any document than to read it literally----” Guiseppi v. Walling, 144 F.2d 608, 624 (2d Cir.1944) (Hand, J., concurring), aff'd sub. nom. Gemsco, Inc. v. Walling, 324 U.S. 244, 65 S.Ct. 605, 89 L.Ed. 921 (1945). He realized that the art of statutory interpretation is “the art of proliferating a purpose.” Brooklyn Natural Corp. v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, *255157 F.2d 450, 451 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 329 U.S. 733, 67 S.Ct. 96, 91 L.Ed. 634 (1946).
Similarly, United States Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter realized that “[statutes ... are not inert exercises in literary composition. They are instruments of government, and in construing them ‘the general purpose is a more important aid to the meaning than any rule which grammar or formal logic may lay down.’ ” United States v. Shirey, 359 U.S. 255, 260-61, 79 S.Ct. 746, 749, 3 L.Ed.2d 789, 793 (1959) (quoting United States v. Whitridge, 197 U.S. 135, 143, 25 S.Ct. 406, 408, 49 L.Ed. 696, 698 (1905)).
Our own jurisprudence has consistently emphasized that legislative intent, if clearly discernible, should prevail over the plain language of a statute. We recently explained: “In the interpretation of a statute our overriding goal has consistently been to determine the Legislature’s intent in enacting a statute.” Roig v. Kelsey, 135 N.J. 500, 515, 641 A.2d 248 (1994); see also City of Newark v. United States, 254 F.2d 93, 97 (3d Cir.1958) (stating that intention of lawmakers is paramount in' determining meaning of statute); Safeway Trails, Inc. v. Furman, 41 N.J. 467, 477, 197 A.2d 366 (holding that Court’s duty in construing statute is to determine legislative intention), appeal dismissed and cert. denied, 379 U.S. 14, 85 S.Ct. 144, 13 L.Ed.2d 84 (1964); State v. Carlos, 187 N.J.Super. 406, 414, 455 A.2d 89 (App.Div.1982) (holding that judicial goal in statutory construction is to effectuate legislative intent); Borough of Highlands v. Davis, 124 N.J.Super. 217, 222, 305 A.2d 814 (Law Div.1973) (stating that rules of statutory construction should be subordinated to ultimate goal of carrying out wishes of Legislature).
Thus, we have emphasized that “[sjtatutes are to be read sensibly rather than literally and the controlling legislative intent is to be presumed as ‘consonant to reason and good discretion.’ ” Schierstead v. Brigantine, 29 N.J. 220, 230, 148 A.2d 591 (1959) (quoting Morris Canal & Banking Co. v. Central R.R. Co., 16 N.J.Eq. 419, 428 (Ch.Div.1863)). We have explained that “[i]t is *256not the words but the internal sense of the law that controls.” Wollen v. Fort Lee, 27 N.J. 408, 418, 142 A.2d 881 (1958).
Like the majority, I believe that the appropriate test under N.J.S.A. 39:6A-4 is whether a substantial nexus exists between plaintiffs injuries and the assailant’s use of an automobile. Ante at 246, 250, 649 A.2d at 1274, 1276. Unlike the majority, however, but like the Law Division and the Appellate Division, I find that the nexus between the two events is not substantial.
Contrary to the majority opinion, I respectfully submit that the substantial-nexus test does not support the conclusion that the automobile was “central” to the assault on the hypothesis that “[it] furnished the assailant with ... both anonymity and a means of escape.” Ante at 252, 649 A.2d at 1277. Under the majority’s reasoning, the victim of any assault could recover PIP benefits as long as the assailant used a motor vehicle to escape or conceal his or her identity. Although the Legislature conceivably could write a statute that affords such coverage, I believe that it has not done so.
Central to the majority’s result is the unsupported characterization of drive-by shootings as “an increasingly-common part of the American experience.” Ante at 252, 649 A.2d at 1277. Whatever truth lies in that characterization is unsupported by any statistics or other authority. A drive-by shooting, “[like] a verbal or physical confrontation with the occupants of another vehicle[,] is not part of the normal use of an automobile.” Vasil v. Zullo, 238 N.J.Super. 572, 577, 570 A.2d 464 (App.Div.1990). In light of the undisputed fact that plaintiffs injuries were caused by a bullet from a gun, I would find that the relationship between those injuries and the assailant’s automobile is so attenuated that it fails the substantial-nexus test.
I would affirm.
Justices O’HERN and GARIBALDI join in this dissent.
*257For reversal — Chief Justice WILENTZ and Justices CLIFFORD, HANDLER and STEIN — 4.
For affirmance — Justices POLLOCK, O’HERN and GARIBALDI — 3.