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

Literal Reading of Police and Fire Public Interest Arbitration Reform Act on Applicability of Cap on Arbitration Awards Would Yield Absurd Results, so the Appellate Division Rejects That Outcome

In re State of New Jersey and Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 91, 450 N.J. Super. 286 (App. Div. 2017). In her opinion for the Appellate Division today, Judge Reisner...

DEP Has the Power to Condemn Property, Take Perpetual Easements to Protect the Shore, and Allow Public Access to Easement Areas

State of New Jersey, Department of Env. Protection v. North Beach 1003, LLC, 451 N.J. Super. 214 (App. Div. 2017). Beach access has long been an important and controversial issue...

"Reasonable Expectations of the Insured" Did Not Defeat Clear Policy Exclusion of "Insured vs. Insured" Claims

Abboud v. National Union Fire Ins. Co., 450 N.J. Super. 400 (App. Div. 2017). This opinion by Judge Ostrer interpreted an "insured vs. insured" exclusion in a directors and officers...

OPRA Covers Electronically Stored Information, Including Fields in E-Mails

Paff v. Galloway Tp., 229 N.J. 340 (2017). In this OPRA case, as discussed here, plaintiff sought to obtain copies of fields in e-mails sent by the Galloway Township Clerk...

Plaintiffs' Creative Arguments Did Not Overcome the Language of Insurance Policies That Precluded Coverage

Gil v. Clara Maass Medical Center, 450 N.J. Super. 368 (App. Div. 2017). This was a medical malpractice case. The appeal, however, resulted from the Law Division's grant of summary...

State Comptroller Need Not Give Reasons for Auditing Local Government Units

Larkins v. Solter, 450 N.J. Super. 519 (App. Div. 2017). The Office of the State Comptroller ("OSC") was established by the Legislature in 2007, in order to subject governmental financial...

No Attorneys' Fees Under OPRA Where Requested Documents Were Produced Before OPRA Lawsuit Was Filed

Stop & Shop Supermarket Co., LLC v. County of Bergen, 450 N.J. Super. 286 (App. Div. 2017). The Open Public Records Act, N.J.S.A. 47:1A-1 to -13 ("OPRA"), permits suits for...

Undoing "Subtle Misinterpretations of … Longstanding Jurisprudence" Regarding Preliminary Injunctions in the Third Circuit

Reilly v. City of Harrisburg, 858 F.3d 173 (3d Cir. 2017). This case involved claims by plaintiffs that an ordinance of the City of Harrisburg unconstitutionally deprived them of the...

"The Record on Appeal" at the NJSBA Annual Meeting

Today's seminar, which was sponsored by the NJSBA Appellate Practice Committee, took up the important topic of the record on appeal. Judge Messano, who headed up the panel, began by...

A Guardian of a Child Who Did Not Intervene to Stop Severe Corporal Punishment by the Child's Mother is Guilty of Abuse and Neglect

New Jersey Division of Child Permanency & Protection v. J.L.G., 450 N.J. Super. 113 (App. Div. 2015), aff'd o.b., 229 N.J. 113 (2017). This abuse and neglect case resulted in...

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Four New Criminal Appeals, and a Lone Civil Matter, for the Supreme Court

The Supreme Court announced that it has granted review in five new appeals. Four of them are criminal cases and one is a civil appeal....

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....

"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....