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NJ Supreme Court: Future Medical Expenses Within PIP Limits Are Inadmissible
On May 6, 2026, the New Jersey Supreme Court unanimously held in Murray v. Punina, 264 N.J. 1, 5 (2026) that future medical expense benefits that do not exceed a claimant's Personal Injury Protection (PIP) coverage limits are "collectible" for purposes of N.J.S.A. 39:6A-12 and, therefore, inadmissible in a plaintiff's personal injury trial against a tortfeasor. The rule applies equally to PIP benefits obtained through standard auto policies and through the Unsatisfied Claim and Judgment Fund (UCJF). Justice Fasciale wrote for the Court, affirming the Appellate Division.
The facts of the Murray case are brief. Plaintiff Murray, injured as a passenger in a 2016 collision with an uninsured driver, received PIP benefits through NJPLIGA/UCJF entitling her to US$250,000 in PIP benefits. Her pre-trial medical expenses did not exhaust those limits. Over defendant Marrone's objection, the trial court admitted expert testimony projecting $42,000–$160,000 in future surgical expenses, and the jury awarded $100,000 in future medical damages. The Appellate Division reversed, holding the evidence inadmissible, and the Supreme Court affirmed.
The Court's decision rested on five interlocking lines of reasoning. First, it observed that New Jersey's No-Fault Act was built on a deliberate trade-off: accident victims receive prompt, guaranteed medical expense compensation regardless of fault, in exchange for limits on their right to sue. N.J.S.A. 39:6A-12 exists specifically to enforce the other side of that bargain—by barring admission of evidence of losses "collectible" under PIP, it prevents plaintiffs from recovering the same medical costs twice (once from guaranteed PIP benefits and again from a tort verdict against the tortfeasor). The Court reasoned that permitting double recovery would undermine the entire cost-control logic of the no-fault system—if plaintiffs can collect the same expenses from both sources, the guaranteed-benefit-in-exchange-for-limited-tort-recovery bargain becomes one-sided.
Second, the Court held that N.J.S.A. 39:6A-12 applies to UCJF claimants because the UCJF was created to place victims of uninsured drivers in the same position as standard-policy claimants—"equivalent to" and no better than a liability policy. The UCJF statute, N.J.S.A. 39:6-86.1, uses "personal injury protection" as a general term, and every No-Fault Act PIP amendment has been conformingly applied to UCJF benefits—confirming legislative intent that the two schemes operate identically. Reading N.J.S.A. 39:6A-12 to not apply to UCJF claimants would hand them a windfall double recovery unavailable to standard-policy holders, contradicting the fund's remedial purpose.
Third, the Court carefully parsed the statutory terms. Under longstanding New Jersey case law, “collectible” means an amount a person has a present legal entitlement to receive—regardless of whether payment has been requested or delivered. Because PIP coverage creates an automatic legal right to payment for covered medical expenses up to the policy limit the moment those expenses are incurred, any future expense falling within remaining PIP capacity is already "collectible" as a matter of law. It is "unpaid" only in the sense that the treatment hasn't happened yet, but it is not "uncovered" or beyond the reach of PIP. The Court thus rejected Murray's conflation of "unpaid" with "not collectible," explaining that the two concepts are legally distinct.
Fourth, the Court found that the legislative history confirmed the narrow scope of the 2019 amendment. In Haines v. Taft, 237 N.J. 271 (2019), the Court had barred evidence of medical expenses exceeding a plaintiff's lower PIP limits (e.g., $15,000)—leaving those plaintiffs with no source of recovery for excess costs. The legislature's fix, the 2019 amendment, was narrowly targeted: it permits recovery only of expenses that "exceed or are unpaid or uncovered by" PIP limits. The Court reflected that Governor Murphy's signing statement confirmed the amendment's purpose was to help "low-income drivers . . . [with] lesser PIP coverage options" recover costs that exceed their PIP ceilings—not to allow any plaintiff to recover costs the PIP system will eventually cover. The Court reasoned that if the legislature had intended to open the door to within-limits recovery, it would have said so explicitly—instead, the amendment's entire thrust reinforces the "collectible" reading.
Finally, the Court identified a concrete policy danger if "unpaid" future expenses within PIP limits could be presented to a jury: plaintiffs would have a financial incentive to defer recommended medical treatment until after trial specifically to inflate their tort verdict—shifting costs the PIP carrier/fund was designed and funded to absorb onto individual defendants. The Court explicitly found this would constitute the precise "double-dipping" and cost-shifting the No-Fault Act was built to eliminate, rewarding gamesmanship over genuine need. This consequentialist reasoning served as an independent justification for the holding.
Defense attorneys should, therefore, do three things in the wake of the Murray decision: (1) identify PIP coverage early; (2) serve targeted PIP exhaustion discovery; and (3) move in limine to exclude future medical expense evidence. To identify PIP coverage, counsel should determine plaintiff's PIP source, maximum limit, amounts paid, and remaining balance, as every dollar of remaining capacity is considered inadmissible damages. Serving targeted PIP exhaustion discovery is a must, counsel must demand the PIP declarations/UCJF coverage letter, payment ledger, and confirmation of remaining benefits. Finally, counsel should move in limine to exclude future medical expense evidence and cite Murray and N.J.S.A. 39:6A-12 with supporting coverage documentation to preserve the record for appeal.
Murray v. Punina provides a bright-line rule grounded in five independent but reinforcing rationales. Defense counsel should incorporate it immediately into standard motion practice in every New Jersey auto personal injury case where PIP benefits remain available.
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