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

Supreme Court's Decision in Shelton v. Restaurant.com Applies Retroactively to Plaintiffs

Bohus v. Restaurant.com, Inc., 784 F.3d 918 (3d Cir. 2015). [Disclosure: I argued this appeal for plaintiffs in this case]. Retroactivity of judicial opinions is sometimes a difficult question. The...

Law of the Case Doctrine Does Not Extend From One Party to Another Party Not in Privity

State v. K.P.S., 221 N.J. 266 (2015). Two defendants who had been charged in the same indictment with many of the same crimes sought to suppress certain evidence. The Law...

Daubert Challenges to Damages Models at the Class Certification Stage

In re Blood Reagents Antitrust Litigation, 783 F.3d 183 (3d Cir. 2015). In Comcast Corp. v. Behrend, 133 S.Ct. 1426 (2013), discussed here, the Supreme Court reversed the 2011 decision...

Land is Not "Insured Property" Under the Standard Flood Insurance Policy

Torre v. Liberty Mutual Fire Ins. Co., 781 F.3d 651 (3d Cir. 2015). This per curiam opinion deals with insurance coverage for the removal from plaintiffs' land of Hurricane Sandy-generated...

FLSA Plaintiff Wins Under an Exception to an Exemption

McMaster v. Eastern Armored Services, Inc., 780 F.3d 167 (3d Cir. 2015). Plaintiff Ashley McMaster was a driver and/or guard (some days she drove, and other days she rode as a...

The Appellate Division Discusses Three Rules of Evidence

Parker v. Poole, 440 N.J. Super. 7 (App. Div. 2015). Appellate decisions that explicate rules of evidence are not frequent. Today's opinion in this case, written by Judge Hoffman, is such...

"Public Policy" Does Not Require That a Spouse be Deemed the Beneficiary of a Life Insurance Policy

Fox v. Lincoln Financial Group, 439 N.J. Super. 375 (App. Div. 2015). A man had a life insurance policy on which he designated his sister as beneficiary. He then married,...

Trial Period Plan Agreement With Mortgage Lender is a Conditional Agreement to Modify a Mortgage

Arias v. Elite Mortgage Group, Inc., 439 N.J. Super. 273 (App. Div. 2015). This opinion by Judge Reisner affirmed a grant of summary judgment in favor of the defendant bank...

No Civil Rights Act Claim by Demoted Municipal Employee Where He Did Not Actually Exercise First Amendment Rights

Heffernan v. City of Paterson, 777 F.3d 147 (3d Cir. 2015). [Disclosure: Victor A. Afanador and Susana Cruz Hodge, my colleagues at Lite DePalma Greenberg, LLC, represented the successful appellees...

Another Supreme Court Decision on a Certified Question, This Time on the Wage and Hour Law and Wage Payment Law

Hargrove v. Sleepy's, LLC, 220 N.J. 289 (2015). Today, speaking through Judge Cuff, the Supreme Court issued an opinion on a certified question posed to the Court by the Third...

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 343536 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45…Last

The "Limited Attorney Exemption" of the Debt Adjustment and Credit Counseling Act is Held Unconstitutional as Violative of the Separation of Powers and Void for Vagueness

Anchor Law Firm, PLLC v. State of New Jersey, ___ N.J. Super. ___ (App. Div. 2025). The Debt Adjustment and Credit Counseling Act, N.J.S.A. 17:16G-1 et seq. ("DACCA"), prohibits debt adjusters in New Jersey from operating for a profit. There is an exception for attorneys not "principally engaged" (a term not defined in the statute) in debt adjustment. That exception, adopted in a 1986 amendment, replaced a prior version of the DACCA that had exempted all attorneys from its scope....

Appellate Division Oral Argument of the Week: Where a Party Files a Suit Alleged to Violate the UPEPA But Quickly Dismisses It, Can Defendants Then Get Counsel Fees Under the Statute?

On May 15, judges on Part C of the Appellate Division will hear oral argument in Satz v. Keshet Starr. Plaintiff, acting pro se, filed a defamation suit against defendants. Defendants filed an o order to show cause to dismiss the case and for attorneys' fees under the Uniform Public Expression Protection Act, N.J.S.A. 2A:53A-49 et seq. ("UPEPA"). The UPEPA, enacted in 2023, sought to make it more difficult to use the legal system as a weapon to bully individuals into silence by filing what have been known as SLAPP ("strategic lawsuits against public participation") suits....

"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....