39:6-35. Failure to satisfy judgment

If a person fails to pay and satisfy every judgment rendered against him for damages because of personal injury or death, or damage to property in excess of $500.00, resulting from the ownership, maintenance, use or operation of a motor vehicle and every judgment based on an agreement or contract made in settlement of damages arising out of a motor vehicle accident, within 60 days after its entry, or if an appeal is taken therefrom within that time, within 60 days after the judgment as entered or modified becomes final, the operator's license and all registration certificates of any such person, other than a chauffeur or operator employed by the owner of a motor vehicle and so acting at the time of the damage, injuries or death resulting in the judgment, shall, upon receiving a certified copy of a transcript of the final judgment from the court in which it was rendered showing it to have been still unsatisfied more than 60 days after it became final, be forthwith suspended by the director.

If the director is satisfied that a judgment debtor or his insurance carrier was, within the said 60-day period, ready, willing and able to pay the said judgment but was prevented from so doing by reason of the refusal or legal inability of the judgment creditor to accept payment, or that the failure to pay said judgment within the said 60-day period was due to the act or neglect of the judgment debtor's insurance carrier and not to any fault of the judgment debtor then the director may, in his discretion, extend the 60-day limitation herein prescribed for any reasonable time necessary to complete the formality of payment of the judgment and shall not suspend the judgment debtor's driver's license, operating privilege or certificate of registration.

The judgment herein mentioned shall be a judgment of a court of competent jurisdiction of this State or any other state or of a District Court of the United States.

The license and registration certificates shall remain so suspended and shall not be renewed, nor shall a motor vehicle be thereafter registered in the name of that person while the judgment remains unstayed, unsatisfied, subsisting and until every such judgment is satisfied or discharged, except that in the event that the judgment debtor shall be relieved of liability for payment of said judgment by an adjudication of the court in which the same was entered, or if the right to enforce said judgment by docketing and revival, or by revival, or by bringing an action thereon, shall have expired without such revival or the bringing of any such action thereon, the judgment debtor's license shall be restored to him, and one or more motor vehicles may be registered in his name, upon application to the Division of Motor Vehicles.

A discharge in bankruptcy shall relieve the judgment debtor from any of the requirements of this act, provided that the underlying judgment was not based on a willful or malicious tort.

The clerk of the court in which the judgment is rendered, or the court where it has no clerk, shall forward to the director, at the request of the judgment creditor or his attorney, after the expiration of the 60 days a certified copy of the judgment or a transcript thereof, as aforesaid.

Upon the filing with the court of proof of satisfaction or discharge of a judgment, the nonpayment of which has been previously certified to the director, the clerk of the court, or the court where it has no clerk shall immediately forward notice of such satisfaction or discharge to the director.

If the defendant is a nonresident the director shall transmit to the officer in charge of the issuance of driver licenses and registration certificates of the state of which the defendant is a resident a certified copy of the judgment.

If after proof is given, another such judgment is recovered against that person for an accident occurring before the proof was given, the license and certificate shall again be and remain suspended, and no other license or certificate shall be issued to him while the judgment so remains unsatisfied and subsisting.

L. 1952, c. 173, s. 13; amended 1956,c.175; 1957,c.106; 1964,c.113; 1973,c.5; 1979, c.169,s.1; 1988,c.119,s.13.