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

Challenges to Class Representative's Adequacy and to Predominance of Common Issues Fail to Overturn Class Certification in Antitrust Class Case

In re Suboxone Antitrust Litig., 967 F.3d 264 (3d Cir. 2020). In this antitrust class action case, direct purchasers of Suboxone, a prescription pharmaceutical used to treat addiction to opioids,...

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...

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...

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...

An Assortment of New Cases for the Supreme Court

The Supreme Court announced that it has granted certification in five new cases. They include a consumer class action, a parole matter, a criminal appeal, and two insurance-related cases. The...

Avis Budget Group Cannot Force Customers to Arbitrate

Bacon v. Avis Budget Group, Inc., 959 F.3d 590 (3d Cir. 2020). Plaintiffs rented vehicles from defendant Payless Car Rental, Inc., a subsidiary of defendant Avis Budget Group, Inc. (together,...

Breaking the Silence

February 26 was the most recent post on this blog. From then until today, I have had an Appellate Division oral argument, an oral argument on a dispositive motion in...

Plaintiffs Win Against Towing Companies in the Supreme Court, Except on Their TCCWNA Claims

Pisack v. B&C Towing, Inc., 240 N.J. 360 (2020). This matter involved multiple consolidated consumer class actions challenging the fees charged by the defendant towing companies, which towed plaintiffs' vehicles...

Parties' Stipulation Waived Right to Appeal

In re Odyssey Contracting Corp., ___ F.3d ___ (3d Cir. 2019). Odyssey Contracting Corp. and L&L Painting Co., Inc., were (respectively) a subcontractor and the prime contractor on a project...

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...

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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....