In Boone v. Unsatisfied Claim and Judgment Fund/New Jersey Property-Liability Insurance Guaranty Association, A-2772-24, a published decision issued on July 24, 2026, the New Jersey Appellate Division addressed a question of first impression: whether liability policies issued to Transportation Network Companies (“TNCs”) under the Transportation Network Company Safety and Regulatory Act (“TNC Act”), N.J.S.A. 39:5H-1 to -27, must provide personal injury protection (“PIP”) benefits to uninsured pedestrians struck by a TNC vehicle. Judge Bergman, writing for a panel that included Judges Sabatino and Natali, addressed two questions. First, the Appellate Division considered whether the TNC Act exclusively governs a TNC’s required insurance, thereby exempting a TNC policy from the pedestrian PIP mandate of N.J.S.A. 17:28-1.3. Second, the Appellate Division evaluated whether that statute applies where the driver, rather than the TNC, owned the vehicle and was the named insured. The Court concluded that N.J.S.A. 17:28-1.3 requires every motor-vehicle liability policy, including one issued to a TNC, to provide pedestrian PIP benefits, thus affirming the trial court’s reformation of the policy.
By way of background, Plaintiff Lamar Boone, an uninsured pedestrian who neither owned a vehicle nor resided with anyone who did, was allegedly struck by Jean Zamor while Zamor was logged into the Lyft network and providing a prearranged ride. Zamor’s vehicle was insured under a Liberty Mutual “Business Auto” policy issued to Lyft that provided liability coverage, but no PIP benefits for pedestrians. After Liberty Mutual denied Boone’s claim for PIP medical-expense benefits, he sought coverage from the New Jersey Property-Liability Insurance Guaranty Association (“NJPLIGA”), as statutory administrator of the Unsatisfied Claim and Judgment Fund, which also denied the claim on the ground that the vehicle was not an “automobile.” Boone then filed suit and voluntarily dismissed Zamor and Lyft. The trial court, Judge Ralph A. Paolone, denied Liberty Mutual’s summary judgment motion, granted the cross-motions of Boone and NJPLIGA, and ordered the policy reformed to include PIP benefits. Liberty Mutual appealed.
On the principal issue, Liberty Mutual argued that the TNC Act exclusively governs TNC insurance and, because it does not expressly require pedestrian PIP, its policy carried no such obligation. The Appellate Division disagreed. It observed that the TNC Act defines a driver’s “personal vehicle” as a “motor vehicle” (i.e., one simply not treated as an “automobile” under N.J.S.A. 39:6A-2(a) while a prearranged ride is underway) and that N.J.S.A. 17:28-1.3 requires every liability policy on a motor vehicle other than an automobile to provide PIP benefits to pedestrians. Because both statutes predated the 2017 TNC Act, the Legislature was presumed to have intended them to operate in harmony. The Act’s “exclusivity” language, N.J.S.A. 39:5H-26, principally relieves drivers of registering their vehicles as commercial for-hire vehicles and obtaining local licenses. However, it does not immunize their insurers from the requirements of Title 17. The Appellate Division explained that it would otherwise leave uninsured pedestrians struck by TNC vehicles without any PIP source, precisely the outcome the No-Fault Act was enacted to prevent.
The Court likewise rejected Liberty Mutual’s alternative argument, raised for the first time on appeal, that N.J.S.A. 17:28-1.3 did not apply because Zamor, not Lyft, was the named insured. Because Zamor was logged into the network and providing a prearranged ride when the accident occurred, the Lyft policy was in effect, and Lyft was effectively and constructively the named insured. Any other interpretation would defeat the No-Fault Act’s guarantee of coverage without regard to fault. The Appellate Division noted that the Department of Banking and Insurance’s Order No. A15-106, requiring commercial motor-vehicle insurers to carry stranger-pedestrian PIP, was consistent with this scheme, though ultimately unnecessary to the holding because N.J.S.A. 17:28-1.3 independently compelled the result. The Appellate Division, having found no error in the denial of summary judgment, also affirmed the denial of Liberty Mutual’s motion for reconsideration.
Moving forward, Boone confirms that an insurer must include uninsured-pedestrian PIP coverage in every TNC liability policy issued in New Jersey covering a driver’s personal vehicle, and that the omission of such mandatory coverage is ineffective and subject to reformation. Insurers writing commercial or rideshare risks should confirm that their motor-vehicle liability policies conform to N.J.S.A. 17:28-1.3, as the TNC Act’s exclusivity provisions will not shield a policy from the No-Fault Act’s pedestrian PIP mandate. The decision also signals that New Jersey courts will construe the compulsory-insurance scheme liberally to ensure that pedestrians injured by rideshare vehicles are not left to fund their own medical treatment while liability is litigated.
The Boone decision is available here. For additional questions, please contact Robert J. Cahall, Esquire and/or Igor Konstankevich, Esquire.
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