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

Two New Cases for the Supreme Court

The Supreme Court announced that it has granted certification in two cases, which are numbers A-2 and A-3 in the current Term. Both appeals are from published opinions by three-judge...

Three More Supreme Court Grants of Review

The Supreme Court announced that is has granted certification in three more cases. Two of them are criminal appeals. The third is an insurance case in which, due to a...

The Supreme Court Takes Up Five More Cases

The Supreme Court announced today that it has granted review in five more cases. In four of those matters, the Court granted certification. The fifth case will be before the...

The Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association and a Landmark Decision in Constitutional Law

Forty years ago today, the Supreme Court decided State v. Celmer, 80 N.J. 405 (1979), a case that arose out of he conviction of defendant on charges of DWI, speeding,...

The Supreme Court Will Review Three Published Appellate Division Decisions, and One Unpublished One

The Supreme Court announced that it has granted review in four more cases. In three of those appeals, the Court granted petitions for certification. In the fourth case, the Court...

When New Issues Arise on Appeal, Appellate Division Should Conduct Oral Argument Even if No Party Originally Requested It

State in the Interest of D.M., 238 N.J. 2 (2019). In this juvenile delinquency case, neither the State nor defendant sought oral argument in the Appellate Division. The State, the...

The Supreme Court Takes Three More Cases

The Supreme Court announced today that it has granted review in three new cases. One of them is before the Court on leave to appeal, while the other two involve...

Two More for the Supreme Court

The Supreme Court announced that it has granted certification in two more cases. In the first matter, State v. Medina, the question presented, as phrased by the Supreme Court Clerk's...

Two More Criminal Cases, and Another Arbitration Case, for the Supreme Court

The Supreme Court announced today that it has granted certification to review three cases. Two of them are criminal appeals. The third is another case involving an arbitration agreement. The...

The Supreme Court Takes on a Lot More Work

Today, the Supreme Court announced that it has granted review in nine more cases. That is many more cases than are usually accepted for review at one time, though it...

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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....