NEW JERSEY SUPREME COURT UPHOLDS BAR ON SUITS BY UNINSURED.

The New Jersey Supreme Court has rejected a constitutional challenge to the state's law forbidding uninsured motorists who are injured in accidents from filing suit to recover damages.

"We are satisfied that the Legislature did not exceed its constitutional authority" in enacting the law, Justice Barry T. Albin wrote for the unanimous court in Caviglia v. Royal Tours of America et al. (A-72-02).

Plaintiff Jorge O. Caviglia was seriously injured in 1997 when the auto he was driving was hit by a tour bus driven by Hector Mundo. Because he was uninsured, he faced a fine, a period of community service and forfeiture of his license.

In addition, state law barred him from suing the at-fault driver, preventing him from pursuing his claim that the injuries prevented him from performing normal daily activities and caused him severe pain and suffering.

Caviglia sued in state court, claiming the law violates state and federal guarantees of equal protection and due process of law.

A Superior Court judge agreed, and an appellate court affirmed the ruling. Royal Tours appealed to the state's highest court and prevailed.

The 1997 law says any person "who, at the time of an automobile accident resulting in injuries to that person, is required but fails to maintain medical expense benefits coverage mandated by [the law] shall have no cause of action for recovery of economic or non-economic losses sustained as a result of an accident while operating an uninsured vehicle."

The law "gives the uninsured driver a very powerful incentive to comply with the compulsory insurance laws: obtain automobile liability insurance coverage or lose the right to maintain a suit for both economic and noneconomic injuries," Justice Albin wrote.

"A state statute generally does not run afoul of federal substantive due process protections if the statute 'reasonably relates to a legitimate legislative purpose and is not arbitrary or discriminatory'," he wrote, quoting a 1934 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Nebbia v. New York.

As for the New Jersey constitution, the court applies a balancing test weighing the "nature of the affected right, the extent to which the governmental restriction intrudes upon it, and the public need for the restriction," he said.

The 1997 law "did nothing more than subject the right to sue for noneconomic damages in an automobile accident case to the condition that the injured motorist secure liability insurance. Preconditions on the filing of lawsuits are a common feature of our laws" - including meeting statutes of limitations and deadlines for service of notice.

"The Legislature is empowered to pass enactments that create incentives to coerce compliance with the law."

Nor does the law violate equal-protection guarantees, he said.

"Uninsured drivers are not similarly situated to insured drivers because uninsured drivers are in violation of the law, and their counterparts are not."

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