New Jersey's top court has handed auto insurers a clear win, ruling that future medical costs covered by PIP cannot be shown to juries.
The decision, issued May 6, 2026, by the New Jersey Supreme Court in Lakita D. Murray v. Christopher B. Punina, closes off a strategy that could have left tortfeasors and their insurers paying twice for the same injury – once through PIP benefits and again through a jury award.
The dispute traces back to August 2016, when Lakita Murray was riding as a passenger in a car driven by Christopher Punina that collided with another vehicle driven by Anthony Marrone. Punina was uninsured, and Murray did not live in a household with auto coverage of her own. She turned to the New Jersey Property-Liability Insurance Guaranty Association under the Unsatisfied Claim and Judgment Fund, which approved her application and made her eligible for up to $250,000 in medical expense benefits. Her treatment costs before trial did not exceed those limits.
Murray sued both drivers in 2018. Punina defaulted. She offered to settle with Marrone for $50,000, but he passed.
That set up the central issue. Murray's medical expert estimated she would need future surgeries costing somewhere between $42,000 and $160,000 – figures comfortably within her remaining PIP cushion. Murray had chosen not to undergo the recommended procedures before trial, though she testified she still intended to have them. Marrone's lawyers asked the trial judge to keep that future-cost testimony out of the courtroom, pointing to a New Jersey law that bars evidence of medical losses already covered by PIP. The judge let it in anyway.
The jury then awarded Murray $250,000 in non-economic damages and another $100,000 for future medical expenses, splitting fault eighty-twenty between Punina and Marrone. With pre-judgment interest, costs, and an additional fee award triggered by Murray's rejected settlement offer, Marrone's total tab climbed past $120,000.
The Appellate Division saw it differently and stripped out the future medical piece, along with the fee bump that came with it. The Supreme Court, in a unanimous opinion by Justice Fasciale, agreed.
The reasoning came down to one word: collectible. New Jersey's no-fault statute makes evidence of medical losses inadmissible at trial if they are collectible or paid under PIP. Murray's lawyers argued that future expenses she had not yet incurred were neither – just unpaid bills floating in some legal limbo. The court rejected that framing. Future medical costs that fall within a claimant's PIP limits remain eligible for payment whenever the treatment happens, the court said, which makes them collectible regardless of timing.
The justices were also blunt about why this matters. If plaintiffs could simply postpone surgery until after the verdict and then claim those costs from a tortfeasor, the no-fault system's basic bargain would unravel. Insurers would face exposure for losses the PIP framework was specifically designed to absorb, and double recovery – the very thing the statute was written to prevent – would become routine.
The court also confirmed that the inadmissibility rule applies to claimants drawing PIP benefits through the Unsatisfied Claim and Judgment Fund, not just those with standard, basic, or special auto policies. Reading the two statutory schemes together, the justices said it would make little sense to give Fund claimants a richer recovery than drivers carrying their own no-fault coverage.
There was one practical concern worth noting. The New Jersey Association for Justice, appearing as a friend of the court, warned that barring future-cost evidence could leave injured people stuck if their PIP claims later ran into the two-year statute of limitations. The court waved that off, pointing to long-standing case law that extends the deadline when a carrier knows future treatment is likely. As long as a claim is brought within a reasonable time after a denial, it stands.
The end result: the Appellate Division's judgment was affirmed, the future medical award was wiped out, and the fee enhancement that rode on it disappeared with it. For carriers writing auto coverage in New Jersey, and for the defense bar handling PIP-adjacent litigation, the message is straightforward – what PIP covers stays with PIP, and juries are not going to hear about it.
