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Everett v. State Farm Indemnity Co.12/31/2002
berty Corp., 51 N.J. Super. 447, 466 (App. Div. 1958), aff'd, 29 N.J. 239 (1959); Ross v. Miller, 115 N.J.L. 61, 64 (Sup. Ct. 1935). This judicial construction of "payment," known to the Legislature when it adopted N.J.S.A. 39:6a-13.1a, provides further evidence of the accuracy of State Farm's contentions.
IV.
Yet, if we put aside the etymological debate over the potential meanings of the word "payment" in every day parlance, and if we also shun the way "payment" has been defined by our courts in other settings, there is nothing about the policies which underlie statutes of limitations in general and there is nothing about the history and goals of the No Fault Law in particular which justify the extraordinarily broad definition adopted by the majority.
The purpose of any statute of limitations, as a general matter, is "to stimulate litigants to pursue a right of action within a reasonable time so that the opposing party may have a fair opportunity to defend," and "to penalize dilatoriness and serve as a measure of repose." Aponte-Correa, supra, 162 N.J. at 324 (quoting Zupo v. CNA Ins. Co., 98 N.J. 30, 32 (1984)). In determining that an unusually broad definition of "payment" is warranted in light of these policies, the majority provides examples of the arbitrary impact caused by a more narrow definition. The problem with the majority's approach, I respectfully suggest, is its disregard for the inherently arbitrary nature of statutes of limitations. Molnar v. Hedden, 138 N.J. 96, 102 (1994); Rivera v. Prudential Prop. & Cas. Ins. Co., 104 N.J. 32, 40 (1986). The plain meaning of N.J.S.A. 39:6A-13.1a should not be avoided merely because it might result in occasional arbitrary results; all statutes of limitations have a tendency to generate arbitrary results.
The examples of inconsistent results provided by the majority are no more unsettling than others which emanate from the routine enforcement of statutes of limitations. For instance, a personal injury suit filed two years and one day after its date of accrual will be routinely dismissed, whereas the same complaint filed two days earlier will be welcomed by our courts. In both circumstances, in the words of my colleagues, the defendant "would have been in the same position vis-a-vis its knowledge of the accident and its ability to defend a lawsuit." Yet a defendant's knowledge and ability to defend, the panacea offered by the majority for judging the applicability of the statute of limitations, is simply at odds with the bright lines drawn by our Legislature in enacting statutes of limitations. The majority's philosophy, if applied to all statutes of limitations, would soon eviscerate all statutes of limitations. The simple fact of the matter is that statutes of limitations are, by their very nature, arbitrary.
I find nothing offensive in a statute of limitations which fixes the maintainability of a suit based on factors other than time and, thus, would not interpret N.J.S.A. 39:6A-13.1a in a duly broad and unnatural fashion so as to avoid the arbitrary or inequitable possibilities which trouble the majority. The No Fault Law has as its goal the reduction of insurance premiums through the elimination of minor tort claims from our congested court calendars. See, Section V, below. A potential bar of a claim due to its monetary insignificance is neither irrational nor inconsistent with that theme and well within the Legislature's authority to declare.
Whether a particular category of claims should be barred from the courts is for the Legislature to decide. Once the Legislature has drawn such parameters it is not our place to either question the wisdom of those boundaries or to seek to ameli
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