Court Opinion

ID: 9765792
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 04:19:40.963763+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:15.757655
License: Public Domain

Justice LaVECCHIA,
dissenting.
I have a different view of the legislative intent animating the provisions of the New Jersey Automobile Insurance Cost Reduction Act (AICRA), L.1998, c. 21 and c. 22 generally, and the physician certification requirement specifically. AICRA added that requirement to the other conditions that an accident victim must satisfy to pursue a tort recovery under the limitation on lawsuit provisions set forth in N.J.S.A. 39:6A-8a. In this matter, the Appellate Division held that the plaintiffs failure to comply with the physician certification requirement could result in the dismissal without prejudice of her complaint, notwithstanding that the two-year statute of limitations for instituting suit had run. Casinelli v. Manglapus, 357 N.J.Super. 398, 815 A.2d 524 (2003). The majority now marginalizes dismissal (with or without prejudice) of such actions due to the failure to provide a timely certification. In my view, the Court’s determination will prevent the culling of verbal threshold lawsuits that AICRA was designed to accomplish. Although I respect the majority’s difference with the Legislature on that policy choice, culling such cases was, and is, a policy choice that was within the legislative prerogative. Thus, in my view, the analyses that are more true to the legislative scheme are those of the Appellate Division in Watts v. Camaligan, 344 N.J.Super. 453, 782 A.2d 479 (2001) and Konopka v. Foster, 356 N.J.Super. 223, 812 A.2d 363 (2002).
*368I.
There is no need to duplicate the majority’s succinct history of New Jersey’s system of no-fault automobile insurance. Suffice it to say, in 1998 AICRA tightened the limitations on the injuries that are considered serious enough to allow for a tort recovery, notwithstanding an insured’s selection of the limitation on lawsuit option in an insurance policy (the “verbal threshold”). N.J.S.A. 39:6A-8a. AICRA eliminated those injury categories that were regarded as subjective in nature. See Sponsor’s Statement to Senate Bill No. 8, at 59 (Apr. 2, 1998) (stating that “[i]n order to further limit the number of lawsuits filed and thereby reduce premiums for bodily injury coverage, the bill completely eliminates the existing verbal threshold and substitutes a new verbal threshold which is intended to eliminate some of the lawsuits for minor injuries, including soft tissue injuries, which are neither serious nor permanent”); see also Craig & Pomeroy, New Jersey Auto Insurance Law § 15:4-la (Gann, 2003) (commenting on legislative intent to address through AICRA “the failure of prior law to stem the tide of lawsuits related to soft-tissue injuries”).
Thus, a person injured in an automobile accident may maintain a lawsuit for economic damages only if the injury falls into one of the following categories: (1) death; (2) dismemberment; (3) significant disfigurement or significant scarring; (4) a displaced fracture; (5) loss of a fetus; or (6) a permanent injury within a reasonable degree of medical probability, other than scarring or disfigurement. N.J.S.A. 39:6A-8a (emphasis added). An “injury shall be considered permanent when the body part or organ, or both, has not healed to function normally and will not heal to function normally with further medical treatment.” Ibid. In addition, the Legislature added the requirement of a physician certification that must be produced early in the litigation, plainly to prevent verbal threshold cases from clogging the courts by a mechanism that enables faulty suits to be culled from the system early and easily. Specifically, N.J.S.A. 39:6A-8a provides that
*369[i]n order to satisfy the tort option provisions of this subsection, the plaintiff shall, ■within 60 days following the date of the answer to the complaint by the defendant, provide the defendant with a certification from the licensed treating physician or a board-certified licensed physician to whom the plaintiff was referred by the treating physician. The certification shall state, under penalty of perjury, that the plaintiff has sustained an injury described above. The certification shall be based on and refer to objective clinical evidence, which may include medical testing____ The court may grant no more than one additional period not to exceed 60 days to file the certification pursuant to this subsection upon a finding of good cause.
The making of a false or misleading certification constitutes a crime, and provides grounds for forfeiture of the professional license held by the person so certifying. Ibid. Thus, while the heightened verbal threshold effectuates “the statute’s clear purpose to limit standing for recovery for pain and suffering,” Watts, supra, 344 N.J.Super. at 465, 782 A.2d 479 (citing Governor’s Recommendations for Reconsideration Statement to Senate Bill No. 8, at 4 (Apr. 27,1998) (L. 1998, c. 21)), the corollary physician certification requirement is plainly designed to deter fraudulent claims, to punish physicians who collude in the presentation of those claims, and to facilitate early and easy elimination of faulty suits from court dockets.
Legislative expressions during passage of AICRA, as well as gubernatorial statements upon presentment of the bill, convey these themes. The statute was the product of legislative and executive compromise. The bill was the subject of a gubernatorial conditional veto, in which the Governor explained why the bill should be amended in order for it to receive her signature.1 The Governor discussed the principal provisions of AICRA in light of “the level of interest in and the certainty of judicial interpretation,” and reaffirmed the bill sponsors’ overall view that the statute was designed “to limit standing for recovery for pain and *370suffering.” Governor’s Recommendations for Reconsideration Statement to Senate Bill No. S, at 4 (Apr. 27,1998) (L. 1998, c. 21). More to the point, the Governor stated:
Complementing the tightened lawsuit threshold in controlling premium costs are several measures designed to combat fraud. First, every complaint in a pain and suffering lawsuit brought under the lawsuit threshold must be accompanied by a certification from the treating physician attesting the seriousness of the plaintiffs condition. The certification is executed under penalty of perjury; fraudulent filing of a certification is grounds for imprisonment and revocation of one’s professional license. The certification is intended as an anti-fraud measure to assure legitimacy; it is necessary to state a claim, not sufficient to establish one, and will be subject to challenge through the normal discovery and summary judgment processes.
[Id. at 4-5 (emphasis added).]
II.
Plaintiff did not submit the required certification within the sixty-day time period required under N.J.S.A. 39:6A-8a, or during the additional sixty-day extension period permitted for good cause. Casinelli, supra, 357 N.J.Super, at 406, 815 A.2d 524. Defendant moved for summary judgment, thereby presenting the question whether dismissal due to plaintiffs undisputed failure to provide the sworn physician’s certification should be with, or without, prejudice.
In Watts, supra, the Appellate Division held that the failure to comply timely with the physician certification requirement of AICRA warranted dismissal without prejudice. 344 N.J.Super. at 468, 782 A.2d 479. The automobile accident in Watts occurred on February 8, 2000. A complaint was filed on March 17, 2000, and an answer followed on April 19, 2000. Id. at 458, 782 A.2d 479. On September 20, 2000, the defendant filed a motion to dismiss based on plaintiffs failure to supply a physician’s certification within the time allotted under AICRA. The plaintiff thereupon filed the necessary certification on October 6, 2000, in response to the motion. Id. at 458, 782 A.2d 479. Significantly, in Watts “the two-year statute of limitations period set forth in N.J.S.A. 2A:14-2 had not expired at the time the trial court had considered the *371defendant’s motion.” Casinelli, supra, 357 N.J.Super. at 410, 815 A.2d 524 (noting contrasting posture of Watts).
The Waifs court compared the physician certification requirement of AICRA with the similarly worded Affidavit of Merit Statute, N.J.S.A. 2A:53A-27, made applicable to professional malpractice or negligence actions. Watts, supra, 344 N.J.Super. at 462-63, 782 A.2d 479.2 The court noted that the Affidavit of Merit statute states that failure to provide an affidavit “shall be deemed a failure to state a cause of action.” Id. at 462, 782 A.2d 479 (quoting N.J.S.A. 2A:53A-29). In contrast, AICRA does not have a specific provision that addresses the effect of a failure to comply with the certification requirement. AICRA only states “that a plaintiff ‘shall’ provide the required certification ‘[i]n order to satisfy the tort option provisions’ of the subsection, which describes the types of injury required to qualify for non-economic damages under the limitation on lawsuit option.” Id. at 462-63, 782 A.2d 479 (quoting N.J.S.A. 39:6A-8a).
Although recognizing that “[t]he physician certification requirement was intended as an anti-fraud measure to assure legitimacy,” the court likened the requirement to “the imposition of a condition for the continued maintenance of a lawsuit.” Id. at 466, 782 A.2d 479. The court explained that
[t]he requirement is procedural in nature related to the sufficiency of the pleadings, ie. the statement of a claim. The required production is not intended to go to the *372establishment of a cause of action. We conclude that the failure to comply with the physician certification requirement of AICRA was not intended by the Legislature to preclude future suits for legitimate injuries sustained as the result of another’s negligence.
Our analysis is consistent with R. 4:6-2(e), Failure to State a Claim, and the holding in Printing Mart v. Sharp Electronics, 116 N.J. 739, 772, 563 A.2d 31 (1989), that, “barring any other impediment such as a statute of limitations,” a dismissal without prejudice should ordinarily be granted in response to a successful motion for failure to state a claim. Here, the impediment to future causes of action created by the Legislature was the revised verbal threshold, not the failure to file a physician certification.
[Ii at 467, 782 A.2d 479.]
The intersection of the statute of limitations for filing a tort action with the physician certification condition for bringing suit under the verbal threshold, was not present in Watts. It is squarely presented here. The statute of limitations on plaintiffs tort action had run at the time that plaintiff filed the physicians’ certifications and the trial court had to decide whether to dismiss the action with or without prejudice.
Konopka, supra, presented similar circumstances. 356 N.J.Super. 223, 812 A.2d 363. There, the plaintiff served on the defendant, within one month of the filing of the defendant’s answer, a report by her treating chiropractor that established permanency, but failed to file the physician certification until sixteen months after the defendant’s answer, when more than two years had elapsed from the date of the motor vehicle accident. Id. at 228, 812 A.2d 363. Citing Watts, the Konopka court stated that although plaintiffs claim should not have been dismissed with prejudice for failure to file timely the physician certification, “a transformation of the dismissal to one without prejudice offers plaintiff no particular benefit in this case because any reinstitution of suit is barred by the statute of limitations.” Ibid. I agree.
The remainder of the court’s analysis considered whether the doctrine of substantial compliance could be applicable. Noting that the two-fold purpose of the physician certification requirement was to acquaint the defendant with the nature and severity of the plaintiffs alleged injuries and to prevent fraud, id. at 229, 812 A.2d 363, the court held that the service of a mere report, as *373opposed to a certification, did not demonstrate general compliance with the purpose of the statute. Ibid. Writing for the court, Judge Payne stated that “[t]he purpose of the statute and its enforcement mechanism would be entirely undercut if service of a mere report were deemed the substantial equivalent of service of a certification.” Ibid. On that, I agree also.
Thus, I am of like mind with the courts in Watts and Konopka to the extent that they concluded that the failure to comply with the strict temporal requirements of AICRA’s physician certification obligation should be treated as the equivalent of a failure to state a claim, and that the presumptive disposition in such a case should be a dismissal without prejudice, barring any other “impediment” such as a statute of limitations. Where, as here, the statute permits a common-law negligence action to proceed subject to certain substantive (the severity of injury) and procedural (the physician certification) requirements, barring clear legislative intent to the contrary a plaintiffs failure to comply with the procedural requirement should be handled consistent with our involuntary dismissal practice under Rule 4:37-2(a), which provides that the involuntary dismissal of an action for failure to comply with a procedural rule should be presumptively without prejudice.3 That policy fits here.
*374AICRA contains no provision that requires dismissal with prejudice for failure to provide a timely physician certification. Nor does the legislative history specify such a permanently preclusive effect. Although the Governor’s Statement refers to the physician certification requirement as “necessary to state a claim,” the language of the statute only specifies that “in order to satisfy the tort option,” the certification must be submitted. I do not impute from that language a legislative intent to preclude reinstitution of a personal injury action for failure to provide timely the physician certification.4 However, the statutory language, sharpened by the Governor’s Statement, instructs us that the requirement is necessary to pursue the tort option.
Accordingly, I would conclude that when a plaintiff fails to comply with the physician certification requirement and the time-lines for its submission contained in N.J.S.A. 39:6A-8a, the plaintiffs case should be dismissed, but without prejudice to its reinstatement so long as there is not some other bar such as an expired statute of limitations that precludes the claim or action. Treating the physician certification as a procedural requirement, imposed as a condition of pursuing the tort option under the verbal threshold, fulfills the legislative intent to prevent a litigant from pursuing a claim that is not supported by a physician certification. And, it furthers the legislative mechanism for easy and early removal of faulty verbal threshold cases from the courts. The majority’s determination today thwarts those purposes and therefore, I must respectfully dissent.
*375For affirmance in part; reversal in part and remandment— Chief Justice PORITZ and Justices LONG, ZAZZALI, ALBIN and WALLACE—5.
For dissent—Justice LaVECCHIA—1.

 Governor Christine Todd Whitman did not sign Senate Bill No. 3 when it first was presented for her signature, exercising her constitutional prerogative to conditionally veto the bill with recommendations that led directly to the legislation we address in this appeal. See N.J. Const. art. V, § 1, par. 14; Oswin v. Shaw, 129 N.J. 290, 308, 609 A.2d 415 (1992) (stating that adoption of legislation following conditional veto renders conditional veto message strong evidence of legislative intent).

 The Affidavit of Merit statute provides that:
In any action for damages for personal injuries, wrongful death or property damage resulting from an alleged act of malpractice or negligence by a licensed person in his profession or occupation, the plaintiff shall, within 60 days following the date of filing of the answer to the complaint by the defendant, provide each defendant with an affidavit of an appropriate licensed person that there exists a reasonable probability that the care, skill or knowledge exercised or exhibited in the treatment, practice or work that is the subject of the complaint, fell outside acceptable professional or occupational standards or treatment practices. The court may grant no more than one additional period, not to exceed 60 days, to file the affidavit pursuant to this section, upon a finding of good cause.
[N.J.S.A. 2A:53A-27.]

 Rule 4:37-2(a) states:
For failure of the plaintiff ... to comply with these rules or any order of court, the court in its discretion may on defendant’s motion dismiss an action or any claim against the defendant. Such a dismissal shall be without prejudice unless otherwise specified in the order.
The Rule is invoked lypically to dismiss actions or claims for procedural deficiencies, such as violations of discovery rules or related court orders. See, e.g., Woodward-Clyde Consultants v. Chemical & Pollution Scis., Inc., 105 N.J. 464, 469-70, 523 A.2d 131 (1987) (dismissing counterclaim for failure to comply with court order to supply certified answers to interrogatories); Scalza v. Shop Rite Supermarkets, Inc., 304 N.J.Super. 636, 637, 701 A.2d 764 (App.Div.1997) (upholding dismissal of complaint for failure to comply with order requiring more specific answers to interrogatories); Bd. of Educ. of Twp. of W. Milford v. Rockwell Mfg. Co., 173 N.J.Super. 506, 506-08, 414 A.2d 613 (Law Div.1980) (dismissing complaint for failure to answer interrogatories).

 In addition, I find no evidence in AICRA's language or history that requires that we treat the statutory time frame for submission of the physician certification as analogous to a limitation period for bringing a cause of action such that dismissal must be with prejudice, unless there are extraordinary circumstances. In contrast, I note that evidence of that sort motivated the Court’s conclusion in Alan J. Cornblatt, P.A. v. Barow, 153 N.J. 218, 246-47, 708 A.2d 401 (1998) (discussing Hartsfield v. Fantini, 149 N.J. 611, 695 A.2d 259 (1997), and Wallace v. JFK Hartwyck at Oak Tree, Inc., 149 N.J. 605, 695 A.2d 257 (1997), which involved legislation that required motion for trial de novo, following mandatory arbitration, to be filed within thirty days and stated expressly that failure to file within that time period would result in dismissal of any future court action).