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

Calculating the Available Discovery Period

Jatczyszyn v. Marcal Paper Mills, Inc., ___ N.J. Super. ___ (App. Div. 2011). The key issue in this case involves how to calculate the discovery period permitted by the Court Rules in a circumstance where...

"A Procedural Swamp"

Lombardi v. Masso, 207 N.J. 517 (2011). In this case, a Law Division judge granted summary judgment to certain defendants. The judge then denied plaintiff's motion for reconsideration. Another defendant had defaulted....

A New Decision on the Collateral Order Doctrine

In re Mushroom Direct Purchaser Antitrust Litig., 655 F.3d 158 (3d Cir. 2011). Under Cohen v. Beneficial Indus. Loan Corp., 337 U.S. 541 (1949), certain rulings that are not final may be...

Supply the Full Trial Transcript or You Will Lose Your Appeal

Cable v. Rodig, 2011 WL 3425570 (App. Div. Aug. 8, 2011). In order for an appellate court to understand what happened below, and to review those goings-on, the appellate court...

Latest U.S. Supreme Court Decision on Personal Jurisdiction is a New Jersey Case

J. McIntyre Machinery, Ltd. v. Nicastro, 131 U.S. 2780 (2011). Lawyers and judges sometimes refer to new cases that grow out of an older, seminal case as the "progeny" of...

An Unpublished Appellate Division Decision is Binding on the Parties to that Ruling

Triffin v. Capital One, 2011 WL 2848271 (App. Div. July 20, 2011). Under Rule 1:36-3, "[n]o unpublished opinion shall constitute precedent," and "except to the extent required by res judicata, collateral estoppel, the single...

Judges Hayden, Ostrer and St. John are Elevated to the Appellate Division

Chief Justice Rabner announced today that, effective August 1, 2011, Judges Hayden, Ostrer and St. John were all being elevated to the Appellate Division. All three of those judges were previously...

29 Years Since Crowe v. DeGioia

On July 8, 1982, the Supreme Court decided Crowe v. DeGioia, 9o N.J. 126 (1982). The case has become the standard authority for the criteria for issuing preliminary injunctive relief. But attorneys...

Looking Back on the Evolution of the Federal Appellate Courts

Though Independence Day is not the anniversary of the United States Constitution, it is still a good day to look back on the origin and history of the federal appellate...

Appellate Jurisdiction and the Duty of Candor to the Court– All in a Four-Page Opinion

K.L.G. v. D.M.., 2011 WL 2321404 (App. Div. June 29, 2011). Rule 2:9-1(a) provides that once a notice of appeal is filed, "supervision and control" of the case pass to the...

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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....