NJ Appellate Law Blog – NJ Appellate Lawyer Bruce D. Greenberg blogs about Appeals and Appellate Law Practice

Another Committee on Character Anniversary

Due to my fifteen-year service on the Supreme Court of New Jersey Committee on Character, the date of any Supreme Court decision that implicates the Committee on Character is a...

The State Must Indemnify as Well as Defend County Prosecutors Offices' Employees

State of New Jersey v. County of Ocean, ___ N.J. Super. ___ (App. Div. 2021). This opinion by Judge Mawla involved the question of whether the State was obligated to...

Ullmann Rule Limiting Discovery of Tax Returns Applies to Corporate Returns As Well As Individual Returns

Parkinson v. Diamond Chemical Co., Inc., ___ N.J. Super. ___ (App. Div. 2021). In Ullmann v. Hartford Fire Ins. Co., 87 N.J. Super. 409 (App. Div. 1965), the Appellate Division...

The Anniversary of Hodgson v. Applegate

On this date in 1959, the Supreme Court decided Hodgson v. Applegate, 31 N.J. 29 (1959). Over sixty years later, that opinion is still cited with regularity in cases applying...

How Should a Mortgage Company Use Insurance Proceeds Arising Out of Storm Damage? To Pay Delinquent Interest/Principal, or to Repair the Property?

Wilmington Savings Fund Society, FSB v. Daw, ___ N.J. Super. ___ (App. Div. 2021). Judge Sabatino issued this opinion for the Appellate Division today, in a case that arises out...

A Gym's Claim for Compensation for COVID-19 Closures Under the Governor's Executive Orders Fails

JWC Fitness, LLC v. Murphy, ___ N.J. Super. ___ (App. Div. 2021). This opinion by Judge Rothstadt involved the claims of plaintiff, a gym, for compensation from the State because...

Foreclosure on a Tax Sale Certificate is Averted on Particular Facts

Green Knight Capital, LLC v. Calderon, ___ N.J. Super. ___ (App. Div. 2021). This was an action to foreclose a tax sale certificate. The sequence of procedural events was somewhat...

This Week in the Supreme Court

The Supreme Court issued its first three opinions of the new Term this week. Here are summaries of those rulings: Bozzi v. City of Jersey City, ___ N.J. ___ (2021)....

An Adverse Inference Arising From Spoliation Cannot Arise in Order to Allow a Party to Prove a Claim Against a Non-Party to the Case

27-35 Jackson Avenue, LLC v. Samsung Fire & Marine Ins. Co., Ltd., ___ N.J. Super. ___ (App. Div. 2021). This opinion, issued today and authored by Judge Messano, is the...

A Busy August for the Supreme Court So Far

August is often a busy month for the Supreme Court, as the Justices count down to the new Term by deciding most if not all of the remaining cases from...

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The "Limited Attorney Exemption" of the Debt Adjustment and Credit Counseling Act is Held Unconstitutional as Violative of the Separation of Powers and Void for Vagueness

Anchor Law Firm, PLLC v. State of New Jersey, ___ N.J. Super. ___ (App. Div. 2025). The Debt Adjustment and Credit Counseling Act, N.J.S.A. 17:16G-1 et seq. ("DACCA"), prohibits debt adjusters in New Jersey from operating for a profit. There is an exception for attorneys not "principally engaged" (a term not defined in the statute) in debt adjustment. That exception, adopted in a 1986 amendment, replaced a prior version of the DACCA that had exempted all attorneys from its scope....

"Hot Fun in the Summertime": Appellate Division Summer Parts

In an Order available here, Chief Justice Rabner announced the lineup for the Appellate Division's summer Parts. As has been customary, the "summer" runs not between the meteorological start and end dates for summer, nor from Memorial Day to Labor Day, but from June 16 through September 7....

The Supreme Court Confirms That Municipalities Can be Subjected to Sanctions for Frivolous Litigation

Borough of Englewood Cliffs v. Trautner, ___ N.J. ___ (2025). This appeal presented the question of whether municipalities can be liable to pay sanctions for frivolous litigation, under the Frivolous Litigation Statute, N.J.S.A. 2A:15-59.1 ("the FLS"). In a 5-0 opinion written by Justice Fasciale (Chief Justice Rabner and Justice Hoffman did not participate), the Court affirmed, as modified, the decision of the Appellate Division that upheld the Law Division's imposition of FLS sanctions against the Borough....

The "Castle Doctrine"

State v. Bragg, ___ N.J. ___ (2025). A jury found defendant guilty of twelve charged counts, including attempted murder, kidnapping, aggravated assault, terroristic threats, possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose, endangering, and two lesser-included offenses of harassment. Some of those charges involved the use of deadly force. Persons may not use deadly force if the can retreat with complete safety. But under the "castle doctrine," an exception to the general rule, a person "is not obliged to retreat from his dwelling, unless he was the initial aggressor." N.J.S.A. 2C:3-4(b)(2)(b)(i). That doctrine derives from the common law....