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

The "Single Publication Rule" and the One-Year Statute of Limitations Bar a Defamation Case

Petro-Lubricant Testing Laboratories, Inc. v. Adelman, 447 N.J. Super. 391 (App. Div. 2016). The "single publication rule" gives a defamation plaintiff "a single cause of action, which arises at the...

A "Bleak House" for the 21st Century- Chavez v. Dole Food Co.

Chavez v. Dole Food Co., 836 F.3d 205 (3d Cir. 2016). In the classic Charles Dickens book "Bleak House," the legal case of Jarndyce v. Jarndyce ran for so many...

The Discovery Rule is Applied to Common Law and Consumer Fraud Act Claims

Catena v. Raytheon Company, 447 N.J. Super. 43 (App. Div. 2016). The time when a cause of action accrues, for purposes of triggering the statute of limitations, is a recurring...

Supreme Court Will Review PERC, Foreclosure, and Statute of Limitations Cases

The Supreme Court announced that it has granted review in three civil cases (not to mention several more criminal cases, which will not in fact be mentioned here). The first...

Law Against Discrimination Statute of Limitations Cannot be Shortened by Contract

Rodriguez v. Raymours Furniture Co., Inc., 225 N.J. 343 (2016). Plaintiff became employed by defendant, who is better known to the public as Raymour & Flanigan. The employment application that...

The "Installment Contract" Approach to the Statute of Limitations

In re Estate of Balk, 445 N.J. Super. 395 (App. Div. 2016). Mark Roseman was the executor of a decedent's estate. The decedent's two sons sued Roseman for breach of...

(Likely) Coming Soon to the Supreme Court: When Does the Involvement of DNA Evidence Toll the Criminal Statute of Limitations?

State v. Twiggs, 445 N.J. Super. 23 (App. Div. 2016). In this conspiracy to commit robbery case, the Law Division dismissed the indictment because the State began the prosecution beyond...

An Exception to the General Rule That Appellate Courts Lack Jurisdiction Over Appeals From Dismissals Without Prejudice

S.B. v. Kindercare Learning Centers, LLC, 815 F.3d 150 (3d Cir. 2016). S.B., a four-year old girl, was injured at defendant's day care center. Her mother sued for negligence, on...

An Easy Statute of Limitations Case for the Supreme Court

In re Petition for Referendum to Repeal Ordinance 2354-12 of West Orange Tp., 223 N.J. 589 (2015). This appeal involved the timeliness of a challenge to a bond ordinance for...

Important Choice of Law Decisions Coming From the Supreme Court

Yesterday, the Supreme Court announced that it had granted review in Ginsberg v. Quest Diagnostics, Inc., 441 N.J. Super. 198 (App. Div. 2015), briefly summarized here. (Confirming that nobody is...

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"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....

No Arbitrariness in Rejection of Public Construction Bid That Failed to Include a Properly Signed, Required Consent of Surety

In the Matter of Protest Filed by El Sol Contracting and Construction Corp., Contract T100.638, ___ N.J. ___ (2025). This public bidding case resulted in a 5-2 split at the Supreme Court, the first non-unanimous ruling of the current Term. Justice Hoffman wrote the majority opinion, while Justice Fasciale authored the dissent for himself and Justice Pierre-Louis....