TRENTON — Uninsured motorists cannot sue for injuries in an accident even if they were a passenger in their car, the Supreme Court ruled today. In a unanimous decision, the state’s highest court expanded a law that is silent on what type of remedies passengers in uninsured vehicles have when they get into accidents. "If you’re operating your own...
Supreme court associate justices Helen Hoens, Barry Albin, Jaynee LaVecchia, Roberto A. Rivera-Soto and temporary justice Edwin Stern listen to arguments during a hearing in this April 2011 file photo. TRENTON — Uninsured motorists cannot sue for injuries in an accident even if they were a passenger in their car, the Supreme Court ruled today.
In a unanimous decision, the state’s highest court expanded a law that is silent on what type of remedies passengers in uninsured vehicles have when they get into accidents.
"If you’re operating your own uninsured motor vehicle, you couldn’t bring a lawsuit. The law is very clear," said New Brunswick attorney Lowell Miller, who represented injured passenger Denise Perrelli. "The law didn’t say anything about if you’re a passenger."
Perrelli, formerly of Paramus, was the passenger in her 1992 Oldsmobile Cutlass on Aug. 24, 2006, when a car driven by Bridget Pastorelle pulled into her lane of traffic on the Garden State Parkway in Wall Township, Miller said.
The Cutlass flipped over and the driver, Perrelli’s close friend Geovanni Velverde, was killed. Perrelli suffered a concussion, a broken right arm and fractured fingers, Miller said. She also suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder from witnessing the Velverde’s death, Miller said.
Without auto insurance, she had to pay her own medical bills or have them picked up by federal or state programs, Miller said.
She sued Pastorelle and her father Paul Pastorelle, the car’s owner, for pain and suffering, but the Pastorelles’ insurance company asked for the case to be thrown out. Saying the law did not prohibit passengers in an uninsured car to sue, a Superior Court judge and an appellate court allowed the case to continue. The Supreme Court yesterday dismissed the case.
State law bars lawsuits brought by people injured "while operating an uninsured automobile" but it contains no definition of "operate" or "operating."
"They changed the law based on what they thought the intention of the legislature was," Miller said. "My whole argument was ‘let the legislature do that.’"
Judge Edwin Stern, writing for the court, said allowing passengers in an uninsured vehicle to sue would circumvent the law’s intention of requiring drivers to obtain automobile insurance coverage.
Kenneth Lipstein, attorney for the Pastorelles, thanked the court "for its consideration of the issue" but declined to comment further.