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

Acoli v. New Jersey State Parole Bd., Decided by a Split Appellate Division Panel, Will Likely Return to the Supreme Court

Acoli v. New Jersey State Parole Bd., 462 N.J. Super. 39 (App. Div. 2019). As Judge Fasciale's majority opinion in this case today states, "[i]n 1973, Sundiata Acoli murdered State...

Four More Grants of Certification by the Supreme Court

The Supreme Court announced that it has granted certification in four more cases. Two of those are criminal appeals, and of the two civil appeals, one is from a published...

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...

Statutory Plain Language Overcomes Appealing Facts to Preclude Expungement

State v. N.T., ___ N.J. Super. ___ (App. Div. 2019). While at the beach with her three year-old son, N.T. became intoxicated. Having gone into the water with her son...

Did Denial of a Trial Adjournment to Allow a Criminal Defendant to Replace a Public Defender With Private Counsel Deprive Defendant of His Constitutional Right to Counsel? The Supreme Court Will Decid

The Supreme Court announced late on Friday that it has granted certification in State v. Maisonet. The question presented on this appeal, as phrased by the Supreme Court Clerk's office,...

Mandatory Minimum Prison Term for Driving With a License Suspended After Multiple DWI's is Constitutional

State v. Pimentel, 461 N.J. Super. 468 (App. Div. 2019). N.J.S.A. 2C:40-26 prohibits driving with a license suspended due to a second or subsequent conviction for driving while intoxicated. The...

Two Criminal Cases and a Mortgage Case Reach the Supreme Court

The Supreme Court announced this afternoon that it has granted certification in three more cases. Two are criminal appeals, and the third involves a mortgage dispute. The mortgage case is...

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...

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...

The Supreme Court Will Review Two More Published Appellate Division Opinions

The Supreme Court announced that it has granted certification in two more cases, one civil appeal and one criminal matter. Both of the new appeals involve issues of expert testimony,...

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 222324 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34…Last

Retired Policeman's Pension Benefits Were Wrongly Paid to His Estranged Spouse Rather Than to His Estate, Where He Had Not Designated Anyone to Receive the Pension Benefit if He Died

Isaac v. Board of Trustees, ___ N.J. ___ (2025). Two kinds of benefits are payable to retired members of the.Police and Firemen's Retirement System ("PFRS"). One is a pension benefit, a part of the member's compensation for past services. Pension benefits go to the person whom the member designates, or to the member's estate if no designation is made. The other is a survivor's benefit, which goes to the member's widow for the duration of his or her widowhood. Former Newark policeman Keith Isaac made no designation as to his pension benefits, though he did list his estranged wife, Roxanne, as his spouse when he filed for retirement. Based on that, Isaac's pension benefits were distributed to Roxanne. Isaac's estate contested that, and today the Supreme Court held that the estate should have gotten the pension monies....

The Supreme Court Clarifies New Jersey's Automobile Exception to the Requirement of a Search Warrant

State v. Fenimore, ___ N.J. ___ (2025). Both the United States and New Jersey Constitutions protect the people against "unreasonable searches and seizures" and prohibit the issuance of search warrants without "probable cause." Both federal and New Jersey law, however, recognize an "automobile exception" to the warrant requirement. But New Jersey's automobile exception is narrower than the federal exception, as the Supreme Court stated in State v. Witt, 223 N.J. 409 (2015). Today, the Supreme Court ruled that the Appellate Division in this case had interpreted Witt too broadly in reversing a Law Division decision to exclude evidence from a warrantless search. The Supreme Court reversed and excluded the evidence....

"Liberal Standards" for Standing "Are Not Equivalent to No Standards At All," the Supreme Court Says

New Jersey Coalition of Automotive Retailers, Inc. v. Ford Motor Co., ___ N.J. ___ (2025). As Justice Pierre-Louis observed in her opinion for a unanimous Court in this case today, New Jersey state courts have long "take[n] a more liberal approach to standing than federal law." But in this appeal, the statute sued upon, the Franchise Practices Act, N.J.S.A. 56:10-1 et seq. ("FPA"), stated that only a "franchisee" could sue its franchisor. Because plaintiff here ("NJCAR") was not a franchisee but an association of franchisees, NJCAR lacked standing to bring a FPA case....

Compassionate Release Act Does Not Require Physical Examination of Inmates Seeking Relief, But Denial of Relief in This Case Was Arbitrary and Capricious

M.R. v. New Jersey Department of Corrections, ___ N.J. ___ (2025). Plaintiff appealed the denial of his petition for release under the Compassionate Release Act, N.J.S.A. 30:4-123.51 ("CRA"). He argued that he had not been physically examined by a physician, and that the statute required a physical examination. The Appellate Division determined that the statute did not require a physical examination and upheld the denial of compassionate release. Today, in a unanimous opinion by Justice Hoffman, the Supreme Court agreed that no physical examination was required, but reversed the denial of compassionate relief as insupportable....