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

Justice Alito Addresses the Third Circuit Judicial Conference

The 70th Third Circuit Judicial Conference began last night in Philadelphia. Those of us in attendance were treated to an interesting keynote address by the Third Circuit's (and New Jersey's)...

Appellate Division Keeps Carl Lewis From Getting Out of the Starting Blocks

Layton v. Lewis, 2011 WL 1632039 (App. Div. May 2, 2011). Olympic gold medalist Carl Lewis filed papers to run for the New Jersey State Senate in the Democratic party primary....

A Vist from Justice Breyer

Two episodes of New Jersey Network's television program "Due Process," which are currently scheduled to air in June, will feature an interview with Supreme Court of the United States Justice Stephen Breyer by hosts Raymond Brown...

"Interests of Justice" Provision Does Not Aid Tax Appeal Plaintiffs Who Did Not Pay Subject Taxes Timely

Dover-Chester Associates v. Randolph Tp., 419 N.J. Super. 184 (App. Div. 2011). The procedural history of these consolidated appeals was somewhat convoluted, but the legal issue was straightforward, as Judge Espinosa phrased...

More Criticism of Strategies Contrived to Make an Interlocutory Order Appear Final

Conforti v. Kantorowski, 2011 WL 1433764 (App. Div. April 15, 2011). The Appellate Division often expresses displeasure, or worse, with stratagems designed to obtain immediate appellate review of a decision that is...

U.S. Supreme Court Makes Silly Standing Doctrine Sillier Still

Arizona Christian School Tuition Org. v. Winn, 131 S. Ct. 1436 (2011). New Jersey law may occasionally be difficult to fathom, but at least New Jersey does not have the sometimes bizarre...

Two New Pro-Consumer Decisions

RAB Performance Recoveries, LLC v. George, 419 N.J. Super. 81 (App. Div. 2011), and Cowger v. Cherry Hill Mitsubishi, Inc., 2011 WL 848133 (App. Div. March 14, 2011). The Appellate Division recently...

Welcome to the 21st Century! Playbacks of Testimony in Videotaped Trials

State v. Miller, 205 N.J. 79 (2011). Today, live court reporters are rare in state courts. Most courtrooms rely on video or audio recording of trials instead. The issue in this multi-count...

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...

Professor Williams Speaks on "The New Jersey Supreme Court's Independence Under Fire"

Professor Robert Williams, Distinguished Professor of Law at Rutgers-Camden School of Law, was the speaker at the 22nd annual Alice Sofis Evangelides Lecture at the Eagleton Institute of Rutgers University,...

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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....