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

Supreme Court Says Hoboken City Clerk Violated New Jersey Civil Rights Act

Tumpson v. Farina, 218 N.J. 450 (2014). [Disclosure: Victor A. Afanador and Jeffrey A. Shooman, my colleagues at Lite DePalma Greenberg, LLC, represented the municipal defendants in this case]. The Appellate Division in...

Amending the Evidence Rules

State v. Savoy, 218 N.J. 224 (2014). Under Article VI, section 2, paragraph 3 of the New Jersey Constitution, the Supreme Court has plenary power to "make rules governing the...

Clearing the Way for Pro Bono Assistance to Chapter 7 Bankruptcy Filers

In re Opinion No. 17-2012 of the Advisory Committee on Professional Ethics, 220 N.J. 468 (2014). Chapter 7 bankruptcy is the most common resource of indigent individuals who must file...

A Pro-Plaintiff Ruling in a Civil Rights Act Case

Gormley v. Wood-El, 218 N.J. 72 (2014). Cases under the Civil Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. §1983, are often difficult for plaintiffs. Such cases often fail, frequently on dispositive motions, due to qualified...

Portee Claims, and the Need to Have Witnessed the Horrific Event

Litwin v. Whirlpool Corp., 436 N.J. Super. 80 (App. Div. 2014). In Portee v. Jaffee, 84 N.J. 88 (1980), the Supreme Court established "a cause of action for damages to...

The Crystal Ball: Third Circuit Predictions as to State Law

In re Makowka, 754 F.3d 143 (3d Cir. 2014). This opinion by Judge Hardiman, involving as it does an issue of Pennsylvania law with bankruptcy implications, likely would ordinarily be of...

The Third Circuit Interprets New Jersey's Affidavit of Merit Statute

Nuveen Municipal Trust v. WithumSmith Brown P.C., 752 F.3d 600 (3d Cir. 2014). As discussed here, the Supreme Court of New Jersey has occasionally accepted requests from the the Third Circuit...

Recall of Post-Age 70 Retired Superior Court Judges is Constitutional

State v. Buckner, 437 N.J. Super. 8 (App. Div. 2014). The issue of whether mandatory retirement of judges at age 70 is constitutional was discussed here. (As an aside, the Supreme Court ....

The New Jersey Wiretapping Act is Held Constitutional

Today's post is a guest post by Victor N. Metallo, MAE, MBA, JD, Adj. Professor of Business Law, Montclair State University In State v. Ates, 213 N.J. 389 (2014), the...

Force Majeure

Hess Corp. v. ENI Petroleum, US, LLC, 435 N.J. Super. 89 (App. Div. 2014). ENI entered into a "Base Contract," a form widely used in the oil industry, under which...

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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....

"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....