Guerline Felix v. Brian V. Richards

Summary

The Supreme Court of New Jersey held that the state’s deemer statute requires an out-of-state automobile insurance policy issued by an insurer authorized to transact business in New Jersey to include at least $15,000 per person/$30,000 per accident in bodily-injury liability coverage. The Court rejected GEICO’s argument that New Jersey’s basic policy, which may provide no bodily-injury coverage, altered that requirement. It also rejected GEICO’s equal-protection challenge and affirmed the Appellate Division’s judgment.

Holdings

1. The deemer statute does not incorporate the basic policy's bodily-injury coverage level into its second sentence. An insurer in GEICO's category must provide or be deemed to provide the compulsory minimum bodily-injury liability coverage of $15,000 per person and $30,000 per accident.
2. The deemer statute does not violate equal protection as applied to GEICO. Insurers authorized to write automobile insurance in New Jersey are treated uniformly because they must offer and provide the same presumptive minimum bodily-injury coverage, while New Jersey insureds—not insurers—may elect a lesser basic-policy level of coverage.
3. The Court declined to decide an equal-protection claim from the perspective of an out-of-state insured because no insured asserted that claim and the record lacked evidence concerning coverage disclosures, policy ratings, or the actual effect of the deemer statute on insureds.

Questions Presented

1. Whether New Jersey's deemer statute, N.J.S.A. 17:28-1.4, incorporates the basic policy's lack of mandatory bodily-injury coverage into the second sentence applicable to an insurer such as GEICO that writes automobile insurance in New Jersey and in other states.
2. Whether requiring GEICO's out-of-state policy to provide or be deemed to provide $15,000 per person/$30,000 per accident bodily-injury liability coverage violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Disposition

affirmed