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

Third Circuit Bench-Bar Conference in April 2017 in Lancaster, PA

The Third Circuit has posted a "save the date" notice, available here, for a bench-bar conference next year. The dates are April 19-21, 2017, and the venue will be Lancaster,...

The Appellate Division Goes Back on Tour

It was announced today that on July 25, a panel of the Appellate Division, consisting of Judges Guadagno and Vernoia, will sit at the Monmouth County Courthouse in Freehold. The...

The 2016-2017 General Assignment Order

Today, Chief Justice Rabner issued the 2016-2017 General Assignment Order, which is available here. This document contains the assignments of all Superior and Tax Court judges for the coming term....

"Purple Prose" Makes the Appellate Division See Red

McRae v. New Jersey Transit Bus Operations, Inc., 2016 N.J. Super. Unpub. LEXIS 1598 (App. Div. July 8, 2016). Appellate advocates like to write in ways that make an impact....

Failure to Recreate the District Court Record as Ordered Leads to a Loss on Appeal

Roberts v. Ferman, 826 F.3d 117 (3d Cir. 2016). Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 10(c) deals with the circumstance in which a transcript of a District Court hearing or trial...

When is a Child Witness Competent to Testify?

State v. Bueso, 225 N.J. 193 (2016). Today, the Supreme Court addressed the issue of how a trial court should evaluate the competency of a child witness to testify. The...

A Tour Through the Federal Rules, and Dismissal of an Appeal as Untimely

State Nat'l Ins. Co. v. County of Camden, 824 F.3d 399 (3d Cir. 2016). The case underlying today's 2-1 decision involved claims of legal malpractice. The procedural history was a...

The Facts Require Reversal of a Summary Judgment of Qualified Immunity

Winberry Realty Partnership v. Borough of Rutherford, 2016 N.J. Super. Unpub. LEXIS 1019 (App. Div. May 4, 2016). [Disclosure: I represented the successful plaintiffs-appellants on this appeal]. Qualified immunity is...

An "Attagirl" for Judge Chrystal in a Long-Running Mount Laurel Case

Cranford Development Associates v. Cranford Tp., 445 N.J. Super. 220 (App. Div. 2016). This Mount Laurel litigation resulted in a builder's remedy for construction of a 360-unit residential development in...

Supreme Court Will Review LAD, Fraudulent Conveyance, and Two Criminal Cases

In addition to the Supreme Court's grant of review in a case involving the termination of a contract of sale of residential real estate, discussed here, the Court announced in...

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 212223 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43…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....