ELIZABETH WHITE, PLAINTIFF-APPELLANT, v. VIOLENT CRIMES COMPENSATION BOARD, AN AGENCY OF THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY, DEFENDANT-RESPONDENT.
Supreme Court of New Jersey
Argued January 24, 1978—Decided May 25, 1978.
76 N.J. 368
Argued January 24, 1978—Decided May 25, 1978.
Ms. Carla Vivian Bello, Deputy Attorney General, argued the cause for respondent (Mr. William F. Hyland, Attorney
The opinion of the court was delivered by
PASHMAN, J. On September 15, 1973 eighteen-year-old Elizabeth White was the victim of a brutal criminal assault and rape as a result of which she suffered severe bodily injuries, including a broken jaw, “tremendous” facial bruising and other head injuries. Plaintiff was hospitalized until September 26, 1973, and her jaw was wired shut until October 30, 1973. Although some of her medical bills were paid by insurance, she incurred substantial out-of-pocket expenses in obtaining the required restorative medical and dental care. In addition, her injuries caused her to miss some six weeks of her work as a seamstress.
Despite her debilitated condition, plaintiff was able to provide the police with a description of her assailant on the night of the attack and to identify him by photograph and in person at the hospital the next day. With her jaw still wired and her speech difficult, she later testified before the Ocean County Grand Jury. The assailant subsequently entered pleas of guilty to charges of rape and atrocious assault and battery and was sentenced to a ten-to-twelve year term of imprisonment in July 1974.
After her release from the hospital, plaintiff was “hesitant to be around people and didn‘t go anyplace much.” This shyness, understandably occasioned by the physical and emotional trauma of her ordeal, was exacerbated by the removal of the wiring from her jaw. The full dental plates she had been wearing prior to the tragic occurrence were destroyed as a result of the savage beating inflicted upon her by the assailant. Plaintiff lacked sufficient financial resources to obtain replacement plates until March 1974, when she was able to borrow the necessary amount from her brother. Thus, plaintiff was without any teeth for a number of months. Her embarrassment over her physical appearance enhanced her already great reluctance to participate in
In late November 1973 plaintiff and her mother went to the Ocean County Courthouse to inquire as to how she might receive financial relief for the pecuniary losses she suffered as a result of being the victim of a crime. Plaintiff had previously been advised by an unspecified employee of the County Prosecutor that the Prosecutor‘s Office “would be my lawyer and take care of everything.” She had incorrectly understood this statement to mean that the County Prosecutor would represent her in proceedings to obtain the appropriate civil relief as well as in the prosecution of her attacker. At the courthouse she was referred by a receptionist to the nearby legal services office, which proceeded to refer her to the Ocean County Welfare Board. A caseworker there informed plaintiff that she could not be helped by the Welfare Board and referred her to the welfare director of her municipality. In all these conversations, plaintiff mentioned that her financial distress was a direct result of her being the victim of a criminal attack.
Plaintiff continued her diligent pursuit of assistance by subsequently seeking advice as to the solution to her predicament from the municipal welfare director, a local attorney, a business manager of a hospital and the local police, all to no avail. She was still operating under the assumption that her crime-related losses would be “taken care of when the criminal case was over.” In September 1974, plaintiff contacted the Prosecutor‘s Office to inquire about the status of the prosecution against her assailant. She then learned for the first time that he had already been convicted and sentenced. In response to her query as to what could be done about her bills, she was told that her only avenue of relief would be to retain her own attorney to
Several weeks later plaintiff learned of the existence of a local community action agency where she might be able to obtain assistance in resolving her financial problems. A counselor there had heard of a crime victim‘s aid agency in another state and attempted to ascertain whether such an agency existed in New Jersey. After numerous unsuccessful inquiries, a call to the office of the legislative representatives for the area yielded, after some investigation, the name and address of the respondent Violent Crimes Compensation Board (the Board) and the identity of one of its members, who lived in Ocean County.
Upon learning of the details of plaintiff‘s situation, the Board member, R. Richard Kushinsky, Esq., advised the counselor to write to the Board at once to request the forms for submitting a claim, which the counselor did on November 1, 1974. When the forms were received, plaintiff and the counselor gathered the necessary supporting material and submitted the claim application on November 6. The claim was filed with the Board on November 8, 1974.
The Board processed plaintiff‘s application and verified all of the factual details of her claim, concluding that she was the victim of a violent crime of the requisite magnitude who did sustain pecuniary losses as a result of the injuries she suffered and was thus properly eligible for compensation. Nevertheless, on April 1, 1975 plaintiff was advised by the Board‘s claims investigator that he was recommending the denial of her claim for compensation because it had not been filed within the time specified by the statute controlling the Board‘s operations. Plaintiff requested a hearing before the Board itself, which was held on May 15, 1975. The Board formally denied her claim on July 24, 1975. In its order of denial, the Board observed that had plaintiff‘s claim been
Plaintiff then took her case to the Department of the Public Advocate‘s Citizen Complaint Division, which requested the Board to “retroactively extend” the statutory deadline for the filing of plaintiff‘s claim. The Board declined to reconsider its decision. Pursuant to R. 2:2-3(a) (2), the Public Advocate appealed the Board‘s denial of compensation to the Appellate Division, which, in an unpublished opinion, affirmed the decision of the Board. The court held that the “time limit in question is a condition precedent to a victim‘s eligibility for compensation.” Discerning no judicial power to “relax that condition” even in cases where hardship results, the court ruled that plaintiff‘s claim was barred by the statutory limitation period. We granted plaintiff‘s petition for certification. 75 N. J. 15 (1977).
I
Our initial task is to assess the nature of the statutory time limitation on the filing of claims with the Board. In response to increasing public concern for the plight of innocent victims of violent crime, the Legislature enacted the Criminal Injuries Compensation Act of 1971 (the Act),
No order for the payment of compensation shall be made under section 10 of this act [
N. J. S. A. 52:4B-10 ] unless the application has been made within 1 year after the date of the personal injury or death, and the personal injury or death was the result of an offense listed in section 11 of this act [N. J. S. A. 52:4B-11 ] which had been reported to the police within 3 months after its occurrence.* * *
[
N. J. S. A. 52:4B-18 ]
See also N. J. A. C. 13:75-1.5(a). We agree with the Appellate Division that compliance with the statutory requirement that an application for compensation be filed in timely fashion is a “condition precedent” to eligibility for compensation under the Act.
Statutes of limitation are not all of the same species. Courts have long recognized distinctions among the several types most frequently found. A “true” or “pure” statute of limitations is generally said to operate only to preclude the enforcement of a right by barring a remedy after the expiration of the limitation period without destroying the underlying right itself. See Zoffer v. Crane, 120 N. J. Super. 538, 540 (App. Div. 1972). Statutes of this variety are commonly known as “remedial” or “procedural” statutes of limitation. See Union City Housing Authority v. Commonwealth Trust Co., 25 N. J. 330, 335 (1957). A second type, often referred to as “substantive” or “jurisdictional” statutes of limitation, is said to extinguish the underlying right as well as to bar the remedy. In Marshall v. Geo. M. Brewster & Son., Inc., 37 N. J. 176 (1962), we considered the implications of such a statute in the choice-of-law context:
When the legislature of a state creates or recognizes a right, it may, if it so chooses, subject it to a limitation in such manner that the right is to terminate upon expiration of the limitation. In such cases, the limitation will be viewed not as simply procedural but as part of the state‘s substantive law. * * * On the other hand, the legislature may intend that the limitation operate not as a condition of the right but as the ordinary statute of limitations which is customarily viewed as procedural. Most courts, though by no means all, have construed the limitations in their wrongful death acts as
substantively conditioning the rights granted and such construction has been given effect elsewhere. * * *
Special limitation periods are generally deemed substantive when they are created concurrently with a novel cause of action. Accordingly, the statutory tolling provisions, now embodied in
We are satisfied that the limitation period set forth in
With respect to a substantive limitation period, traditional and respectable authority has construed a party‘s noncompliance with its requirements as an absolute bar to his claim. It was often held that no equitable circumstances could justify any judicial expansion of the time limitation for taking action, despite the harshness of the result in a particular case. We are persuaded that the underlying talismanic adherence to this concept found in much of the decisional law on this subject disserves the goals of justice. As Justice Traynor of the California Supreme Court has observed:
Clearly, whether a particular statute of limitation is viewed as substantive or procedural, the consequences of a failure to commence legal proceedings within the specified time are the same insofar as the claimant is concerned * * *
[In re Caravas’ Estate, 40 Cal. 2d 33, 250 P. 2d 593, 597 (1952)]
In one of the early cases recognizing “a chink in the supposedly impregnable armor of the substantive time limitation,” the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit declared:
* * * the distinction between a remedial statute of limitations and a substantive statute of limitations is by no means so rock-ribbed or so hard and fast as many writers and judges would have us believe. Each type of statute, after all, still falls into the category of a statute of limitations. And this is nonetheless true even though we call a remedial statute a pure statute of limitations and then designate the substantive type as a condition of the very right of recovery. There is no inherent magic in these words.
[Scarborough v. Atlantic Coast Line R. Co., 178 F. 2d 253, 259 (4 Cir. 1949) (emphasis added)]
The court went on to reject the “legalistic distinction between the closely related types of statutes of limitations” and held that the substantive limitation period on suits under the
The vanguard approach taken by the Fourth Circuit in Scarborough, supra, was subsequently approved by the United States Supreme Court in Burnett v. N. Y. Central R. Co., 380 U. S. 424 (1965), where the Court held that the filing of an FELA action in state court tolled the FELA limitation period so that a subsequently filed action in federal court (after dismissal of the state court action) was not rendered untimely by the expiration of the statutory period. Justice Goldberg outlined the proper approach for determining whether equitable exceptions to a statute of limitations are to be allowed:
The basic question to be answered in determining whether, under a given set of facts, a statute of limitations is to be tolled, is one “of legislative intent whether the right shall be enforceable . . . after the prescribed time.” Midstate Horticultural Co. v. Pennsylvania R. Co., 320, U. S. 356, 360 (1943). Classification of such a provision as “substantive” rather than “procedural” does not determine whether or under what circumstances the limitation period may be extended. As this Court has expressly held, the FELA limitation period is not totally inflexible, but, under appropriate circumstances, it may be extended beyond three years. Glus v. Brooklyn Eastern District Terminal, 359 U. S. 231 (1959), See Osbourne v. United States, 164 F. 2d 767 (CA 2d Cir.); Scarborough v. Atlantic Coast Line R. Co., 178 F. 2d 253 (CA 4th Cir.); Frabutt v. New York, C. & St. L. R. Co., 84 F. Supp. 460 (D.C. W.D. Pa.). These authorities indicate that the basic inquiry is whether congressional purpose is effectuated by tolling the statute of limitations in given circumstances. In order to determine congressional intent, we must examine the purposes and policies underlying the limitation provision, the Act itself, and the remedial scheme developed for the enforcement of the rights given by the Act. * * *
The Court added a significant observation in a footnote:
* * * the fact that the right and limitation are written into the same statute does not indicate a legislative intent as to whether or when the statute of limitations should be tolled. Thus the “substantive” — “procedural” distinction would seem to be of little help in deciding questions of extending the limitation period.
[380 U. S. at 427 n. 2 (citations omitted)]
Applying the principles announced to the case before it, the Court held that the commencement of the state suit fulfilled the policies of repose and certainty sought to be advanced by the statutory limitation provision and therefore operated to toll the running of the time period. 380 U. S. at 432-435.
In the recent case of American Pipe & Const. Co. v. Utah, 414 U. S. 538 (1974), the Supreme Court faced the issue of whether the commencement of a class action suit under the antitrust laws suspended the applicable statute of limitations for all purported members of the class who would have been parties had class action status not been denied. The pertinent section of the Clayton Act provided that suits thereunder were “forever barred” unless commenced within four years after accrual of the cause of action.
* * * did not purport to define or restrict federal judicial power to delineate circumstances where the applicable statute of limitations would be tolled.
The Court reaffirmed the approach taken in Burnett, supra:
The proper test is not whether a time limitation is “substantive” or “procedural,” but whether tolling the limitation in a given context is consonant with the legislative scheme.
The Court went further and stated that “a judicial tolling of the statute of limitations does not abridge or modify a substantive right afforded by the antitrust acts * * *” to antitrust defendants. 414 U. S. at 558 n. 29. It concluded by holding that
* * * the mere fact that a federal statute providing for substantive liability also sets a time limitation upon the institution of suit does not restrict the power of the federal courts to hold that the statute of limitations is tolled under certain circumstances not inconsistent with the legislative purpose.
We believe that this approach is sound and far superior to the rather mechanistic treatment this issue has traditionally been accorded. Our inherent judicial power under
II
Our analysis must now turn to the objectives the Legislature sought to achieve in enacting the Criminal Injuries Compensation Act and in setting the one year limitation on applications to the Board. The manifest purpose of the Act is the humane and remedial one of attempting to compensate innocent victims of violent crimes by providing a measure of relief from the economic consequences of their misfortune. In this respect the Act is analogous to the Unsatisfied Claim and Judgment Law,
Similarly apt is the analogy between the purposes of the
* * * to assure that only those persons legitimately entitled to participate in its benefits are paid therefrom.
As we have noted in the context of the New Jersey Tort Claims Act,
Given the overall humanitarian policy of the Act and the plain purpose of its limitation provision that only bona fide victims of violent crimes receive the statutory benefits, we must next consider whether the legislative purposes and intent would be fulfilled in the rather unique circumstances of plaintiff‘s case by a judicial tolling of the statutory limitation period.
The Unsatisfied Claim and Judgment Fund Law specifically provides for a tolling of its notice of claim rule in the event the would-be claimant is “physically incapable” of giving the required notice,
* * * it suffices if, because of the physical injuries and their treatment and preoccupation with his affliction and fear of evil consequences, the victim of the mishap was not mentally and emotionally adjusted to his responsibility of giving notice, * * * * * * It is not dispositive of this issue that the victim was unaware of the statute until his landlady became informed after inquiry. His incapacity in all likelihood was a factor contributing to his continued ignorance of the law and the fund created for relief in such cases; it was then a comparatively new device not within common knowledge and experience. Plaintiff acted in the utmost good faith; he did not willfully default in his obligation, and the fund has not been prejudiced; its administrators have not been disadvantaged in the execution of the statutory policy. There is no contention contra. * * *
See also Giles v. Gassert, supra, 23 N. J. at 29-30. Giacobbe‘s definition of the requisite physical incapacity to give notice was applied to the case of another “hit-and-run” victim with less severe leg fractures in Greene v. Director of Motor Vehicles, 65 N. J. Super. 242 (App. Div. 1961), certif. den. 35 N. J. 60 (1961). The claimant‘s injuries there caused continuous pain and serious complications necessitated periodic rehospitalizations. The statutory notice was not given until nearly six months after the injury. The Appellate Division saw “no essential difference in the two cases as to the inferability of the injured parties’ emotional and mental distress in consequence of the kind of injuries involved * * *” 65 N. J. Super. at 247. It noted the
Judicial treatment of the notice of claim requirements of the Tort Claims Act has also shown a sensitivity to the problems occasioned by the interplay of a would-be claimant‘s physical incapacity and his unawareness of the obligation to give timely notice. Under
Admittedly, both the Unsatisfied Claim and Judgment Fund Law and the Tort Claims Act expressly envision the existence of circumstances which might cause a claimant, as a result of injuries sustained in the incident giving rise to the claim, to be unable to comply with their stringent notice requirements. No similar relief provision exists in
We perceive no policy underlying the Criminal Injuries Compensation Act which would preclude allowing a toll because of a victim‘s crime-induced incapacity. Indeed, the structure and purpose of the Act point toward an opposite conclusion. Unlike claims under the Tort Claims Act, applications for compensation from the Board do not implicate the well-established principle that conditions attached to a limited waiver of sovereign immunity are to be strictly construed.3 See Soriano v. United States, 352 U. S. 270, 276 (1957); Schillinger v. United States, 155 U. S. 163, 166 (1894). Conspicuously absent from the Act is any provision comparable to that in the Tort Claims Act stating a clear legislative intent that governmental entities “shall only be liable” as provided in that statute.4
Nevertheless, allowing the statute to be tolled because of incapacity resulting from the crime for which victim compensation benefits are sought might be inappropriate in a given case if to do so would undermine the salutary purposes of the limitation provision itself by forcing the Board to base its determination on information of questionable reliability. However, no such problem exists in the instant case since, as we have seen, see ante at 372-373, the Board was able to verify the factual bases of plaintiff‘s claim in every detail. In view of the total verification of the authenticity of her claim, allowing the statutory limitation period to be tolled would not frustrate the legislative goal of protecting the limited resources of the Board from
The authorities relied on by the Board to the effect that
III
In light of our determination that the tolling of the statutory limitation provision for the period of plaintiff‘s crime-induced incapacity is appropriate under the particular circumstances of this case, the only remaining question is whether application of that toll renders timely the plaintiff‘s application for compensation, which was mailed on November 6, 1974 and filed with the Board two days later. Resolution of this issue necessitates an assessment of the duration of plaintiff‘s incapacity as a result of the injuries she suffered at the hands of her assailant on September 15, 1973. As the factual recital at the outset of this opinion discloses, plaintiff was hospitalized until September 26, 1973 and her broken jaw remained wired shut until October 30, 1973. That her incapacity continued until at least that date cannot be seriously disputed.
Yet, it cannot be realistically contended that the residual physical and psychological effects of her traumatic experi-
For the foregoing reasons, we hold that plaintiff‘s application for victim compensation pursuant to the Criminal Injuries Compensation Act of 1971 is not barred by the limitation provision of
No order for the payment of compensation shall be made under section 10 of this act unless the application has been made within 1 year after the date of the personal injury or death, and the personal injury or death was the result of an offense listed in section 11 of this act which had been reported to the police within 3 months after its occurrence. * * * (emphasis added)
N. J. S. A. 52:4B-18
The Court concedes, as perforce it must, that the “statutory restriction on the timely filing of applications with the Board is a substantive condition on the victim‘s eligibility for compensation * * *.” Maj. opinion, pp. 375-376. The condition not having been fulfilled, and payment of public funds being involved, this concession should have been dispositive of the case, as the Appellate Division correctly held. In accord: Johnson v. Nissman, 39 A. D. 2d 578, 331 N. Y. S. 2d 796 (App. Div. 1972), where, after the passage of the statutory time for filing claims against a similar board, the court declared the petitioner‘s claim barred, “and no other provision of law or consideration of justice can operate to toll its application.” 331 N. Y. S. 2d at 797. Motivations of fiscal restraint, administrative convenience and minimization of fraudulent claims could entirely reasonably have induced the unconditional time limitations for claims set forth in the statute.
But the Court undertakes to read into the statute a tolling of the one-year limitation on filing of claims for the period of a victim‘s “crime-induced incapacity.” Maj. opinion, p. 384.
My conclusion is additionally fortified by the consideration that the lawmakers must be presumed to have realized that a person injured by a criminal will likely be physically incapacitated for a time, and despite that consideration they elected not to allow tolling of the claim time period for physical incapacity of the victim.
Legislative history is additionally supportive of these views. A predecessor bill, Senate 284 (1966), would have allowed 90 days for filing, “except where unusual circumstances preclude the applicant from so doing.” Another would have allowed two years for filing after the crime or the victim‘s death. Assembly 22 (1966). As we know, these more liberal approaches were rejected for a rigid, unconditional claim period of one year. There has from the beginning been distinct evidence of legislative conservatism in appropriating funds for disbursement by the Board.1 There
The Court‘s action here is distinctly repugnant to the spirit if not the letter of the constitutional principle of immunity of the State to pecuniary claims not expressly authorized by the Legislature.
Further, the action of the Court portends a signal for the coming forward of any number of the myriad victims of crime who did not file within a year, and thus have properly been advised they were barred, but who may now flood the Board with assertions that their failure timely to file was the result of crime-induced incapacity. The administrative difficulties with which the Board will consequently be faced seem formidable and to project the possibility that the limited funds of the Board will not be most effectively deployed for the relief of the class intended to be aided.
This case is classic evidence of the aphorism that hard cases make bad law.
I dissent. I would affirm the judgment of the Appellate Division.
Justice CLIFFORD joins in this dissenting opinion.
Justice SCHREIBER dissents.
For reversal and remandment—Chief Justice HUGHES and Justices SULLIVAN, PASHMAN and HANDLER—4.
For affirmance—Justices CLIFFORD and SCHREIBER and Judge CONFORD—3.