NJ Appellate Law Blog

All Five Women Supreme Court Justices Speak

Imagine that someone assembled Bill Russell, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Michael Jordan, and Kobe Bryant to discuss how to win NBA championships. The parallel to such a gathering, for those interested...

"No Counterclaims" Clause in Loan Agreement is Invalid

Investors Savings Bank v. Waldo Jersey City LLP, 418 N.J. Super. 149 (App. Div. 2011). A loan agreement provided that all documents relating to the loan were legal, valid, binding and enforceable,...

Interlocutory Appeals From PIP Arbitration Decisions are Not Allowed

Allstate New Jersey Ins. Co. v. Neurology Pain Associates, 418 N.J. Super. 246 (App. Div. 2011). The Automobile Insurance Cost Reduction Act ("AICRA") changed the way personal injury protection ("PIP") benefit arbitrations...

Mortgagee Lacks Standing to Enforce Note and Mortgage Unless Documents are Properly Authenticated

Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. v. Ford, 418 N.J. Super. 592 (App. Div. 2011). The question of whether foreclosing mortgagees have the proper proofs to support their cases has been all over the news...

The Breadth of Discovery in Legal Malpractice Cases

Marrero v. Feintuch, 418 N.J. Super. 48 (App. Div. 2011). Numerous cases say that in New Jersey state courts, pretrial discovery in civil cases is very broad. This case reiterates that principle...

Affidavits of Merit Must, Unsurprisingly, be Sworn

Taylor v. Community Medical Center, 2011 WL 181370 (App. Div. Jan. 21, 2011). This was an appeal by a plaintiff in a medical malpractice matter. Her complaint was dismissed for...

Some Lessons About Motions for Reconsideration

Nead v. Union Cty. Educ. Servs. Comm'n, 2011 WL 166205 (App. Div. Jan. 20, 2011). This case, which resulted in a reversal of a trial court's decision to dismiss an employment discrimination case, teaches several things...

The Uses of Unpublished Opinions

Division of Youth & Family Services v. M.D., 417 N.J. Super. 583 (App. Div. 2011). This lengthy opinion by Judge Messano focuses on what information counsel must provide to a defendant who...

Family Motions Should Go to the Judge Most Familiar With the Case

Resman v. Resman, 2010 WL 4940039 (App. Div. Dec. 7, 2010). In this case, which involved post-judgment motions in a matrimonial matter, the Presiding Family Part Judge had handled at...

Third Circuit Explains Twombly Pleading Standard

West Penn Allegheny Health System, Inc. v. UPMC, 627 F.3d 85 (3d Cir. 2010). The standards for a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim under New Jersey's Rule 4:6-2(e) make...

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Lisa Bigony Appointed Deputy Clerk of the Appellate Division

Chief Justice Rabner announced that Lisa D. Bigony has been named Appellate Division Deputy Clerk for Case Processing, effective today. In that role, according to a press release, she will be "responsible for oversight of the various units of case processing, including paralegal and legal, case processing, Civil Appeals Settlement Program, public access unit, calendaring, final disposition, and records and reception."...

The Supreme Court Grants Review of the Threshold Dismissal of a Trust and Estates Case

The Supreme Court announced that it has granted certification in Dill v. Offray. The question presented, as phrased by the Supreme Court Clerk's office, is "Under the circumstances presented, should the Appellate Division have remanded the matter to the trial court after it held that defendant had standing to assert a counterclaim covering the period of time when the prior beneficiary of the trust was alive, and did defendant state a cognizable claim under the Prudent Investor Act ["PIA"], N.J.S.A. 3B:20-11.1 to -11.12?"...

The 2,500th Post on This Blog: Appellate Division Oral Argument of the Week- Need Rutgers University Obtain State Approval Before Offering Its Academic Programming to Students?

On Tuesday, September 29, judges on the Appellate Division's Part D will hear oral argument in In the Matter of the Applicability of Certain Statutes and Regulations to Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. The issue is whether New Jersey's Secretary of Higher Education wrongly determined that Rutgers is obligated to comply with regulations promulgated by the Secretary in 2022 that require colleges and universities subject to the Secretary's jurisdiction to go through a process of having their programmatic decisions approved by the Secretary....

Attorneys' Fees and Attorney Disqualification Appeals Reach the Supreme Court

The Supreme Court announced that it has granted review in two new matters. One of them involves a grant of certification, while the other is before the Court on the grant of leave to appeal....