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Newsletter -
Fall 2007
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In Johnson v. Scaccetti, the New Jersey Supreme Court held that if a single bodily injury proximately caused by a motor vehicle accident vaults the lawsuit threshold, the jury may consider all other injuries in calculating noneconomic damages.
It is well known that an automobile insurance policyholder who chooses the limitation on lawsuit threshold of the Automobile Insurance Cost Reduction Act (AICRA), accepts, in exchange for lower insurance premiums, restrictions on the right to sue for noneconomic (pain and suffering) damages. Pursuant to N.J.S.A. 39:6A-8 , as affected by AICRA, under the verbal threshold standard, “unless [a] person has sustained a bodily injury which results in death; dismemberment; significant disfigurement,” that person may not recover. Moreover, the Plaintiff carries the burden of proof. The statute proceeds to define “permanent injury” as “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.”
In this case, Plaintiff was involved in a motor vehicle accident and suffered numerous injuries, including two chipped teeth and back injuries. Plaintiff’s back injuries consisted of spondylolisthesis and a disc herniation at L5-S1, which led to surgery to fuse together the L5-S1 vertebrae. The New Jersey Supreme Court held that chipped teeth do not satisfy the lawsuit threshold under N.J.S.A. 39:6A-8 because the “ordinary meaning and significance” of a displaced fracture is the complete separation of a bone. However, the New Jersey Supreme Court held that the Plaintiff’s spinal injury satisfied the threshold, thus entitling her to recover noneconomic damages for all of her injuries.
The New Jersey Supreme Court primarily relied on Puso v. Kenyon, 272 N.J. Super. 280, 293 (App. Div. 1994), a pre-AICRA case, which held that a single injury satisfying a threshold category opens the door to consideration of all injuries regardless of whether they independently meet the threshold requirements. The Court also rejected the Defendant’s argument that allowing a Plaintiff to present proof of injuries that did not independently vault the threshold would frustrate New Jersey’s efforts to reduce the cost of automobile insurance. The Court reasoned that limiting a Plaintiff’s right to recover pain and suffering damages would actually decrease insurance costs.
The New Jersey Supreme Court has further defined the New Jersey verbal threshold in its decision in Johnson. Pursuant to the significant decisions in DiProspero v. Penn, 183 N.J. 477 (2005) and Serrano v. Serrano, 183 N.J. 508 (2005), which held that a Plaintiff opposing a summary judgment motion on verbal threshold need only “satisfy one of AICRA’s six threshold categories and does not have the additional requirement of proving a serious life impact,” Defendants in verbal threshold actions undoubtedly will feel the pressures of establishing that Plaintiff’s injuries do not cross the threshold. As a result, there will be a greater emphasis placed on the filing of Motions for Summary Judgment because, should a Plaintiff demonstrate just one of the injuries suffered meets the requirements of N.J.S.A. 39:6A-8(a), Plaintiff will be entitled to recover, at the time of trial, for all of the injuries sustained, including those that would not meet the verbal threshold on their own.
Rey O. Villanueva
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