Pennsylvania Greyhound Lines, Inc. v. Rosenthal

• Decision Date: 11 January 1954
• Docket Number: No. A--26,A--26
• Citation: 102 A.2d 587,14 N.J. 372
• Parties: PENNSYLVANIA GREYHOUND LINES, Inc. v. ROSENTHAL.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

Page 372

14 N.J. 372

102 A.2d 587

PENNSYLVANIA GREYHOUND LINES, Inc. v. ROSENTHAL.

No. A--26.

Supreme Court of New Jersey.

Argued Oct. 5, 1953.

Decided Jan. 11, 1954.

Samuel A. Larner, Newark, argued the cause for appellant (Budd & Larner, Newark, attorneys).

Merritt Lane, Jr., Newark, argued the cause for respondents (Augustus C. Studer, Jr., Newark, of counsel; McCarter, English & Studer, Newark, attorneys).

The opinion of the court was delivered by

HEHER, J.

The action is for contribution under the Joint Tortfeasors Contribution Law of 1952, L.1952, c. 335, p. 1075, N.J.S. 2A:53A--1 et seq., N.J.S.A.

These are the circumstances: On October 22, 1950 Wynne Goldstein suffered personal injury as the result of a collision of an automobile operated by the defendant Irving Rosenthal and a motor bus of the plaintiff Pennsylvania Greyhound Lines, Inc. She was an occupant of Rosenthal's automobile, at his invitation. On May 22, 1951 she brought suit in the Superior Court against Rosenthal and the owners of the automobile and Greyhound and one Miller, the operator of its bus; and there was a verdict of $21,000 against Rosenthal, Greyhound and Miller, and judgment thereon March 26, 1952. There was judgment at the trial dismissing the owners of the Rosenthal vehicle; and they dropped out of the case. Greyhound and Miller appealed to the Appellate Division, and on April 9, 1952 posted a surety bond of $23,000, conditioned for the payment of the judgment and costs should the appeal be dismissed or the judgment affirmed. The bond made provision for its enforcement against the principal and surety by a motion served on the clerk of the court. The judgment was affirmed by the Appellate Division; and thereafter, on December 19, 1952, Greyhound and Miller paid the judgment and costs to the plaintiff Goldstein, and a warrant of satisfaction was entered reciting that payment was received from Greyhound and Miller only.

On June 18, 1952, pending the appeal, and after the filing of the Supersedeas bond, the cited Joint Tortfeasors Contribution Law was enacted; and on January 14, 1953 this action for contribution under that law was begun. On February 1, 1953 the judgment plaintiff Goldstein and the defendant Rosenthal were married, and the marriage still subsists. Rosenthal answered that the Contribution Law could not be constitutionally read as operative retroactively to include this case, and by reason of his marriage to the judgment plaintiff, he 'is not a 'joint tortfeasor" within the intendment of the Contribution Law, and so is not subject to this action for contribution.

There were counter-motions for summary judgment. Defendant's motion was denied; his defenses were stricken, and there was summary judgment for plaintiff on June 12, 1953. Defendant thereupon appealed, pursuant to leave granted by the Appellate Division under Rule 4:2--2(b), now R.R. 2:2--3(b), and the appeal was certified here on our own motion.

I.

These basic points are made In limine: (a) the Contribution Law 'does not apply retroactively to judgments entered prior to its adoption'; and (b) a 'retroactive application' of the act would destroy a 'vested right' secured to defendant under Article I, paragraph 1 of the State Constitution of 1947 and the Fourteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution.

More specifically, it is said that the statute gives rise to a 'substantive' right not known to the common law, and since the plaintiff herein had no right of action against the defendant Rosenthal 'as of the time of the accident, as of the time of the trial, as of the time of the judgment, and as of the time of the filing of the Supersedeas bond,' the defendant 'was guaranteed a right of repose in connection with any claim or potential claim for contribution by the plaintiff' and 'this freedom from liability, although negative in nature,' is 'a vested right under existing law' which is proof against retroactive legislative interference under the cited constitutional limitations.

The case of State by Parsons v. Standard Oil Co., 5 N.J. 281, 74 A.2d 565 (1950), is invoked for the thesis that, in respect of the plaintiff in this action, 'the defendant had a fully vested right to be free from any claim for contribution,' and if the act be given retrospective application 'it removes this vested right and is unconstitutional.'

The act Ex vi termini embraces antecedent joint tortious acts or omissions, but it does not for that reason transgress the cited constitutional security of vested rights. It is in essence a remedial measure, and legislative acts affecting remedies or modes of procedure not in derogation of vested rights are not retrospective in the vicious sense. Morin v. Becker, 6 N.J. 457, 79 A.2d 29 (1951); State by Parsons v. Standard Oil Co., cited supra; Citizens Gas Light Co. v. Alden, 44 N.J.L. 648 (E. & A.1882); Moore v. State, 43 N.J.L. 203 (E. & A.1881); Sturges v. Carter, 114 U.S. 511, 5 S.Ct. 1014, 29 L.Ed. 240 (1885); Hallowell v. Commons, 239 U.S. 506, 36 S.Ct. 202, 60 L.Ed. 409 (1916); Standard Accident Insurance Co. v. Miller, 170 F.2d 495 (C.C.A.7, 1948); Nelson v. Westland Oil Co., 181 F.2d 371 (C.C.A.8, 1950); Home Loan Bank Bd. v. Mallonee, 196 F.2d 336, 382 (C.C.A.9, 1952).

The general rule is that statutes are to be deemed operative In futuro only; but, absent a clear indication of a legislative intent Contra, a remedial and procedural statute is ordinarily applicable 'to procedural steps in pending actions,' and is given retrospective effect 'insofar as the statute provides a change in the form of remedy or provides a new remedy for an existing wrong. * * * Changes of procedure--I.e. of the form of remedies--are said to constitute an exception, but that exception does not reach a case where before the statute there was no remedy whatever,' Shielcrawt v. Moffett, 294 N.Y. 180, 61 N.E.2d 435, 159 A.L.R. 971 (Ct.App.1945). In assessing a provision in a remedial and procedural federal statute that the act should govern 'so far as practicable in cases pending when it takes effect,' it was said that 'the courts will not give retrospective operation to a statute which interferes with antecedent rights in the absence of an unequivocal expression in the statute that the Legislature intended that the statute should have such effect.' Hastings v. H. M. Byllesby & Co., 293 N.Y. 413, 419, 57 N.E.2d 737, 740 (Ct.App.1944). As said in Shielcrawt v. Moffett, supra, the line that separates a procedural statute which merely works a change in the form of the remedy or provides a new remedy for an existing wrong and a statute 'which interferes with antecedent rights or creates a remedy where none previously existed,' is sometimes shadowy and indistinct, and 'general principles' serve as guides to the intention in a particular case 'only where better guides are not available'; they 'govern in default of the disclosure by the Legislature of a different intent.' It was pointed out by Lehman, C.J., that 'changes of form are often closely bound up with changes of the substance,'? and 'nice distinctions are often necessary,' but in the end 'it is in considerations of good sense and justice that the solution must be found.'

But here the legislative intention is not open to doubt. The statute is made applicable, N.J.S. 2A:53A--4, N.J.S.A., 'to all actions for contribution commenced, and to all judgments recovered, after the effective date' of the enactment, 'irrespective of the time of the commission of the wrongful act or acts by the joint tortfeasors:; Provided, that it shall not apply with respect to payments made prior to the effective date' thereof. The statutory right of action for contribution accrues only on the payment by a joint tortfeasor of a money judgment recovered against him for the injurious consequences of the wrong; and by clear and imperative terms the right is enforceable as to payments made on the underlying judgment after the law came into being, even though the judgment was entered before. The payment beyond the payor's pro rata share is the act which gives rise to the statutory right of restitution.

Such is the obvious sense and significance of the statute, for otherwise the proviso would be superfluous; and it is fairly to be presumed that the lawgiverdeemed the proviso essential to the expression of the legislative intent and purpose, as an assurance against misapprehension of the prior terms. If the lawmaker intended to restrict the right of contribution to payments made on judgments in tort recovered after the law took effect, then manifestly there would be no need for the proviso excluding from the operation of the act payments made before it came into existence. There can be no doubt about this if the language is to have its ordinary meaning; and, in the exposition of statutes the judicial interpretive function is to accord to the legislative expression its usual connotation and intendment, relating particular words and phrases to the context and the general object of the law. In all seeming, the phrase 'and to all judgments recovered' has reference to judgments adjudicating both the primary liability in tort and the statutory right of contribution in one proceeding according to the third-party practice provided by R.R. 4:14--1, formerly Rule 3:14--1. Vide Sattelberger v. Telep, 14 N.J. 353, 102 A.2d 577 (1954).

Unlike the draft act submitted by the Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, 9 U.L.A. 156, our statute does not provide for contribution where the payment is made in fulfillment of a voluntary compromise or settlement of a claim for damages attributed to a joint tortfeasor. The act 'shall apply' to 'all actions for contribution commenced' after its effective date, provided only that the payment on the judgment debt is made after the law took effect. The operative act is the payment of more than the judgment debtor's pro rata share of the tort liability established by the judgment. Words are futile...