NJ Appellate Law Blog

A Lesson About Class Counsel's Attorneys' Fees From Judge Gooden Brown

Seigelstein v. Shrewsbury Motors, Inc., 464 N.J. Super. 393 (App. Div. 2020). When class action cases settle with a benefit to the class, class counsel, who normally handle those cases...

Municipal Special Assessment Invalid Where Expert Report on Which it Was Premised Lacked a Rational Basis

Crispino v. Sparta Tp., 243 N.J. 234 (2020). By statute, the Legislature has delegated to municipalities the power to impose special assessments on property owners to fund improvements that benefit...

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...

Board of Education Lacked MLUL Standing Where Its Challenge to Development Approvals Was Based Only on Potential Increased Crowding of Schools

Edison Bd. of Educ. v. Zoning Bd. of Adj. of Edison., 464 N.J. Super. 298 (2020). This opinion by Judge Messano today affirmed a Law Division ruing that the Edison...

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...

Qualified Immunity Denied Based on Dispute About Material Facts

Baskin v. Martinez, 243 N.J. 112 (2020). This Civil Rights Act case involved what Justice Albin, writing for the four-Justice majority, labeled a claim that "a justifiable police chase ended...

Several Statutes and Common Law Permit an Assignee of a Mortgage Note That Was Lost by the Assignor to Enforce the Note

Investors Bank v. Torres, 243 N.J. 25 (2020). As discussed here, the Appellate Division, in an opinion reported at 457 N.J. Super. 53 (App. Div. 2018), affirmed a summary judgment...

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...

Rooming House Operators Have No Statutory or Common Law Duty to Conduct Background Checks on Prospective Occupants in Order to Protect Other Occupants

Estate of Campagna v. Pleasant Point Properties, LLC, 464 N.J. Super. 153 (App. Div. 2020). This opinion is a magnum opus by Judge Sabatino. But he well summarized the ruling...

Determining "The Least Blameworthy of Two Competing Wrongs"

LVNV Funding, LLC v. DeAngelo, 464 N.J. Super. 103 (App. Div. 2020). What does a court do when each party is, for different reasons, in the wrong? That is the...

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The Second and Third Published Appellate Division Decisions of the Current Term

As September turned to October, the Appellate Division issued its second and third published opinions of the Term. One was a decision by Judge Vinci in a civil appeal. The other ruling, in a criminal appeal, was authored by Judge Perez Friscia....

Appellate Division Oral Argument of the Week: Did it Violate a Class Action Settlement That Barred Mass Opt-Outs to Allow Opt-Outs From a Marketing Campaign That Solicited Opt-outs?

On Tuesday, September 30, judges on Part G of the Appellate Division will hear oral argument in Esposito v. Cellco Partnership d/b/a Verizon Wireless. The case follows from a $100 million nationwide class action settlement that had required class members who decided to exclude themselves from the settlement and potentially pursue their own litigation against Verizon to opt out individually, and barred mass opt-outs. However, Murphy Advocates, LLC, a Colorado law firm conducted a marketing campaign to create a mass opt-out that attracted about 11,000 class members who responded to Murphy that they wished to opt out....

A Pair of New Criminal Appeals for the Supreme Court

The Supreme Court announced that it has granted certification in two new cases. Both are criminal appeals. One is from a published opinion of the Appellate Division, while the other is from an unpublished per curiam decision by a three-judge panel....

Can a Plaintiff in a Civil Case Refuse to Testify at Trial After Being Served With a Defense Notice in Lieu of Subpoena and Having Been Ordered to Testify by the Trial Judge? An Anniversary

On this date in 2005, the Supreme Court decided Gonzalez v. Safe & Sound Sec. Corp., 185 N.J. 100 (2005). The case involved a plaintiff who was shot in an apartment building in Atlantic City, which left him paralyzed. He brought a negligence suit against a number of defendants, including Atlantic City Housing & Urban Renewal Associates ("ACHURA"), the owner of the apartment building....