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

The Smoke-Free Act Does Not Preempt A Municipal Ordinance Limiting Smoking in Retail Tobacco Establishments

Sparroween, LLC v. Township of West Caldwell, 452 N.J. Super. 329 (App. Div. 2017). Plaintiffs operated the Cigar Emporium in West Caldwell. In that business, they sell tobacco products, but...

Election Law Enforcement Commission Can Pursue Complaint Against Essex County Executive

New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission v. DiVincenzo, 451 N.J. Super. 554 (App. Div. 2017). In 2011, the New Jersey Election Law Commission ("ELEC"), an independent four-member body that enforces...

The Supreme Court Abandons Baures v. Lewis in Family Law Child Relocation Cases

Bisbing v. Bisbing, 230 N.J. 309 (2017). Justice Patterson began her opinion in this case, for a unanimous Court, as follows. "This appeal arises from a trial court's post-judgment determination...

Ex Post Facto Constitutional Issues, Workers Compensation Jurisdiction, and Municipal Land Use Are Added to the Supreme Court's Docket

The Supreme Court has granted certification to review three more appeals. The first of those actually consists of four cases that have been consolidated under the lead case, State v....

Spokeo Again Fails Defendants at the Third Circuit

Susinno v. Work Out World, Inc., 862 F.3d 346 (3d Cir. 2017). Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, 136 S.Ct. 1540 (2016), discussed here, was a case in which class action defendants...

A Treatise on Personal Jurisdiction From Judge Lihotz

Dutch Run-Mays Draft, LLC v. Wolf Block, LLP, 450 N.J. Super. 590 (App. Div. 2017). Issues of personal jurisdiction crop up fairly frequently, despite New Jersey's settled principle of applying...

As the Summer Months Begin, the Supreme Court Takes Three More Cases

The Supreme Court announced on Friday that it would review three more cases. One of those is before the Court as of right, due to a dissent in the Appellate...

Standing, Attorneys' Fees, Disability, and Search and Seizure: The Latest Cases for the Supreme Court

The Supreme Court has granted review in four more cases. In Cherokee LCP Land, LLC v. City of Linden Planning Bd., the question presented, as phrased by the Supreme Court...

An Anniversary in Redevelopment Law

Ten years ago today, the Supreme Court decided Gallenthin Realty Development, Inc. v. Borough of Paulsboro, 191 N.J. 344 (2007). It was the first time that the Court focused on...

Making Up for Lost Time

Several days out of the office last week, and work on a large appellate brief, have left me well behind our appellate courts, who have produced a number of decisions...

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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....