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

Where a Tenant is in Sole Possession and Control of a Property, the Landlord Has No Duty to the Tenant's Invitee to Clear Snow and Ice

Shields v. Ramslee Motors, 240 N.J. 479 (2020). The Supreme Court always seems to have a snow and ice removal case on its docket. The latest one resulted in an...

Fox Rothschild is Exonerated on Conversion Claim Made by a Non-Client Unknown to the Law Firm

Meisels v. Fox Rothschild LLP, 240 N.J. 286 (2020). Plaintiff was involved in a real estate transaction with a client of defendant Fox Rothschild, Weinstein. An intermediary for plaintiff wired...

The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act

Delanoy v. Township of Ocean, 462 N..J. Super. 78 (App. Div. 2020). The first New Jersey state court published opinion of 2020 goes to Judge Sabatino. The case arose under...

An Assortment of New Cases Get Supreme Court Review

The Supreme Court announced that it has granted review in four more cases. Three of them involve grants of certification. In the fourth appeal, the Court accepted a certified question...

The Most Common Deficiencies in Appellate Division Briefs and Appendices

The bane of every appellate practitioner's existence is the dreaded deficiency notice from the Appellate Division. Last night's meeting of the New Jersey State Bar Association's Appellate Practice Committee included...

Three More Cases for the Supreme Court

The Supreme Court announced this afternoon that it has granted review in three more cases. Each involves a grant of certification. In Gramiccioni v. Department of Law & Public Safety,...

Five More Cases, Including a Certified Question From the Third Circuit, for the Supreme Court

The Supreme Court has granted review in five more appeals. One of them involves a question certified to it by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, one is before the...

Limits on the Ability of the Director of the Division of Civil Rights to Sue in Superior Court

Sashihara v. Nobel Learning Communities, Inc., ___ N.J. Super. ___ (App. Div. 2019). In this case, M.M. ("Jane"), a child with Down's Syndrome, was enrolled by her parents at a...

The Supreme Court Loads Up on New Appeals

The Supreme Court usually adds new appeals in relatively small groups. But its latest tranche of grants of review consists of eight new cases, implicating numerous different area of the...

Stays Pending Appeal- An Anniversary

Since this is an appellate law blog, its "anniversary" posts (as well as all or virtually all others) deal with appellate decisions. Today's post is an exception, in that it...

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 141516 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46…Last

"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....

No Arbitrariness in Rejection of Public Construction Bid That Failed to Include a Properly Signed, Required Consent of Surety

In the Matter of Protest Filed by El Sol Contracting and Construction Corp., Contract T100.638, ___ N.J. ___ (2025). This public bidding case resulted in a 5-2 split at the Supreme Court, the first non-unanimous ruling of the current Term. Justice Hoffman wrote the majority opinion, while Justice Fasciale authored the dissent for himself and Justice Pierre-Louis....