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

When It's All About the Dicta

City Select Auto Sales, Inc. v. David Randall Associates, Inc., 885 F.3d 154 (3d Cir. 2018). This Telephone Consumer Protection Act ("TCPA") case, involving unwanted faxes, was tried to a...

A Reminder About the Importance of the Appellate Appendix

White Glove Hospitality, LLC v. Stockton University, 2018 WL 1352589 (App. Div. March 16, 2018). Many seminars and articles about appellate practice focus on tips for writing better briefs or...

Some Tips on the Appellate Rules from Judge Messano

State of New Jersey in the Interest of N.P., 453 N.J. Super. 480 (App. Div. 2018). This decision by Judge Messano addresses four appeals involving seven different juveniles. The broad...

A Split Appellate Division Decision About the Charitable Immunity Act: On to the Supreme Court?

Green v. Monmouth University, 452 N.J. Super. 542 (App. Div. 2018). Today's opinion by Judge Leone affirmed summary judgment in favor of defendant Monmouth University under the Charitable Immunity Act,...

A Pro Se Prisoner Invalidates the Department of Corrections's Outbound Calling Policy, But …

Grimes v. New Jersey Dep't of Corrections, 452 N.J. Super. 396 (App. Div. 2017). This appeal, decided today, had two unusual wrinkles, apart from its substantive outcome. First, a pro...

Judge Michael Patrick King (1935-2017)

Judge Michael Patrick King, one of the longest-serving members of the Appellate Division, died on November 25, as was revealed publicly today here. A graduate of Fordham University and the...

Appellate Division Statistics for the 2016-17 Term

At last night's New Jersey State Bar Association Appellate Practice Committee meeting, statistics from the 2016-17 Term of the Appellate Division were presented. Many of them are substantially similar to...

Appellate Court's View That Merits of a Case Are Weak Does Not Justify Abandoning Deferential Standard of Review of Trial Level Discovery Rulings

Capital Health System, Inc. v. Horizon Healthcare Services, Inc., 230 N.J. 73 (2017). These two consolidated cases involved rulings on discovery disputes, a subject that rarely reaches the Supreme Court....

The General Assignment Order for 2017-18

Today, the 2017-18 General Assignment Order issued by Chief Justice Rabner was published. It is available here. Judge Messano continues as Presiding Judge for Administration, and Judge Sabatino remains the...

"The Record on Appeal" at the NJSBA Annual Meeting

Today's seminar, which was sponsored by the NJSBA Appellate Practice Committee, took up the important topic of the record on appeal. Judge Messano, who headed up the panel, began by...

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"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....