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

Plaintiffs Can Seek to Be Accompanied to a Defense Medical Examination by a Third Person or to Record the Examination, and (Contrary to the Appellate Division) Plaintiffs Do Not Bear the Burden of Pro

DiFiore v. Pezic, 254 N.J. 212 (2023). [Disclosure: Catherine B. Derenze, my colleague at Lite DePalma Greenberg & Afanador, LLC, argued before the Supreme Court in this case on behalf...

Two Law Against Discrimination Decisions by the Appellate Division

Beneduci v. Graham Curtin P.A., 476 N.J. Super. 73 (App. Div. 2023); Guzman v. M. Texeira Int'l, Inc., 476 N.J. Super. 64 (App. Div. 2023). The Appellate Division issued two...

Resolution of the "Borrowed Employee" Issue under Galvao v. G.R. Robert Construction Co. is For the Jury, Not a Judge

Pantano v. New York Shipping Ass'n, 254 N.J. 101 (2023). Judge Sabatino wrote this 6-0 opinion, which involved "the application of the multi-factor test [the Court] announced in Galvao v....

No Need for Attorney Retainer Agreements to State Expressly That Billing Will be in Tenths of an Hour or Other Increments

Arbus, Maybruch & Goode, LLC v. Cohen, 475 N.J. Super. 509 (App. Div. 2023). In this suit by a law firm to collect its fee from a client (actually, an...

What is a "Class Action" Under the Class Action Fairness Act?

Erie Ins. Exchange v. Erie Indemnity Co., 68 F.4th 815 (3d Cir. 2023). As Judge Smith stated in his opinion in this case, the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005,...

A Class Action Waiver is Unenforceable Absent a Mandatory Arbitration Provision

Pace v. Hamilton Cove, 475 N.J. Super. 568 (App. Div. 2023). Class action waivers have infested numerous areas of our commercial lives, including cellphone contracts, banking agreements, and other documents...

The Third Circuit Moves Its Filing Deadline From Midnight to 5 PM

As discussed here, the Third Circuit proposed earlier this year to amend its Local Appellate Rules to provide that papers received by the Clerk's office after 5 PM Eastern time...

Discovery of Metadata

Estate of Lasiw v. Pereira, 475 N.J. Super. 378 (App. Div. 2023). Judge Messano's opinion in this medical malpractice case today is a relatively rare example of a published appellate...

Another "Kind for Kind" Affidavit of Merit Decision

Pfannenstein v. Surrey, 475 N.J. Super. 83 (App. Div. 2023). At least since Buck v. Henry, 207 N.J. 377 (2011), and Nicholas v. Mynster, 216 N.J. 463 (2013), New Jersey's...

The Last Half of February in the Appellate Division

This follows up on yesterday's post about the second half of February in the Supreme Court. Here are summaries of some of the Appellate Division's published opinions issued in the...

1 2 3 456 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 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41…Last

No Ethics Violation in Attorney Purchasing Another Attorney's Name as a Keyword for Internet Searches, the Supreme Court Says, With a Caveat

In re Opinion No. 735 of the Supreme Court Advisory Committee on Professional Ethics, ___ N.J. ___ (2025). [Disclosure: I represented an amicus curiae in this appeal]. As Justice Noriega said in his opinion for a 5-1 majority (Justice Pierre-Louis did not participate), this appeal "presents the narrow question of whether it is permissible under the Rules of Professional Conduct (RPC) for an attorney or law firm to purchase a competing attorney's or law firm's name as a keyword." The Court found it permissible, with a caveat. Justice Fasciale dissented....

Four Criminal Law Cases, and a Qui Tam Appeal, for the Supreme Court

The Supreme Court announced today that it has granted review in five new appeals. One of them is before the Court on leave to appeal, while in the others the Court granted certification....

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....