The New Jersey Supreme Court gave auto insurers a clear win, ruling that future medical costs covered by personal injury protection cannot be shown to juries.
The May 6, 2026, decision in Lakita D. Murray v. Christopher B. Punina closes a path that risked double recovery in auto injury litigation.
Tortfeasors and their insurers faced the prospect of paying once through PIP benefits and again through a jury award for the same medical loss.
The case began in August 2016. Lakita Murray was a passenger in a car driven by Christopher Punina when it collided with another vehicle driven by Anthony Marrone. Punina was uninsured. Murray also did not live in a household with auto coverage.
She turned to the New Jersey Property-Liability Insurance Guaranty Association through the Unsatisfied Claim and Judgment Fund.
The Fund approved her application, making her eligible for up to $250,000 in medical expense benefits. Her treatment costs before trial stayed within those limits.
Murray sued both drivers in 2018. Punina defaulted. She offered to settle with Marrone for $50,000, but he declined.
That set up the fight over future medical costs. Murray’s medical expert estimated she would need future surgeries costing between $42,000 and $160,000, all within her remaining PIP limit. Murray had not undergone the recommended procedures before trial, though she testified that she still intended to have them.
Marrone’s lawyers asked the trial judge to exclude the future-cost testimony, citing New Jersey law that bars evidence of medical losses covered by PIP. The judge allowed the testimony.
The jury awarded Murray $250,000 in non-economic damages and $100,000 for future medical expenses. It split fault 80% to Punina and 20% to Marrone.
With pre-judgment interest, costs, and a fee award triggered by the rejected settlement offer, Marrone’s total exposure rose above $120,000.
The Appellate Division took a different view and removed the future medical award, along with the related fee increase. The Supreme Court agreed in a unanimous opinion by Justice Fasciale.
The court’s reasoning turned on one word: collectible. New Jersey’s no-fault statute makes evidence of medical losses inadmissible at trial if those losses are collectible or paid under PIP.
Murray’s lawyers argued that future expenses she had not yet incurred were neither collectible nor paid. The court rejected that approach. Future medical costs that fall within a claimant’s PIP limits remain eligible for payment when treatment occurs, making them collectible regardless of timing.
The justices also explained the policy concern. If plaintiffs delayed surgery until after a verdict and then claimed those costs from a tortfeasor, the no-fault system would lose its bargain.
Insurers would face losses that PIP was designed to absorb. Double recovery would become routine. Bad math for the statute, basically.
The court also held that the rule applies to claimants receiving PIP benefits through the Unsatisfied Claim and Judgment Fund. It does not apply only to claimants with standard, basic, or special auto policies.
Reading the statutory schemes together, the justices said Fund claimants should not receive a richer recovery than drivers with their own no-fault coverage.
The New Jersey Association for Justice, appearing as a friend of the court, warned that barring future-cost evidence might hurt injured people if later PIP claims ran into the two-year statute of limitations.
The court rejected that concern, pointing to existing case law that extends the deadline when a carrier knows future treatment is likely. A claim remains viable if filed within a reasonable time after denial.
According to Beinsure analysts, the ruling gives New Jersey auto carriers and defense counsel a cleaner boundary in PIP-adjacent litigation. Future treatment costs stay outside the jury’s view when PIP remains available to pay them.
The result leaves the Appellate Division judgment intact. Murray’s future medical award was wiped out, and the fee increase tied to it disappeared too. For New Jersey auto insurers, the message is blunt: what PIP covers stays in the PIP lane.
