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

An Interesting Case About Interest

State by Commissioner of Transportation v. St. Mary's Church Gloucester, 464 N.J. Super. 579 (App. Div. 2020). This appeal was about how to calculate interest on a portion of a...

Breaking News: Supreme Court Unanimously Upholds the Constitutionality of the COVID-19 Emergency Bond Act

New Jersey Republican State Committee v. Murphy, 243 N.J. 574 (2020). As discussed here, the Supreme Court directly certified a challenge to the recently adopted COVID-19 Emergency Bond Act. After...

Powering Up Again

The power outage resulting from last week's storm put a crimp in much of that week. So it is time once again to catch up with our Supreme Court and...

Consumer Fraud Act and Product Liability Act Claims Can Co-Exist

Sun Chemical Corp. v. Fike Corp., 243 N.J. 319 (2020). This opinion by Justice Solomon today resolved another question (originally, multiple questions, but reformulated into a single question by the...

Casino Control Act Does Not Preempt Consumer Fraud Claims for Alleged False Advertising of Poker Tournament

Bandler v. Landry's, Inc., 464 N.J. Super. 311 (App. Div. 2020). Plaintiff, a competitive poker player, saw an advertisement for a "Grand Poker Series" tournament to be held at the...

New Jersey Arbitration Act Applies Automatically to Contracts Exempt From Federal Arbitration Act

Arafa v. Health Express Corp., 243 N.J. 147 (2020). Justice Fernandez-Vina's opinion today actually involved two consolidated cases, both of which were putative class actions. The issue was whether a...

No Fair Market Value Credit for Foreclosure Debtors Unless Creditors Pursue a Deficiency Action

West Pleasant-CPGT, Inc. v. U.S. Home Corp., 243 N.J. 92 (2020). [Disclosure: I represented the successful defendant in this appeal]. This unanimous decision by Justice LaVecchia today addressed an equitable...

As June Ends, Three Opinions From the Supreme Court

Unlike the Supreme Court of the United States, which customarily (though apparently not this year) issues all its opinions for the term by June 30, the Supreme Court of New...

Uniform Fiduciaries Law Does Not Create an Affirmative Right of Action Against a Bank

Lembo v. Marchese, 242 N.J. 477 (2020). Employees of plaintiff, a dentist, forged endorsements on checks payable to plaintiff's dental practice and deposited those checks into their own accounts at...

Making Up Ground

Due to a personal matter, there have been no posts on this blog since June 2. This post will summarize some of the decisions from our appellate courts since that...

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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....