NJ Appellate Law Blog

Statutory Plain Language Overcomes Appealing Facts to Preclude Expungement

State v. N.T., ___ N.J. Super. ___ (App. Div. 2019). While at the beach with her three year-old son, N.T. became intoxicated. Having gone into the water with her son...

Tenure Rights Vindicated in the Supreme Court

Miller v. State Operated School District of the City of Newark, ___ N.J. ___ (2019). Today, in a per curiam opinion, the Supreme Court affirmed, by a 5-2 vote, the...

An Unusual U.S. Supreme Court Lineup Rules Against Class Action Third-Party Counterclaim Defendants on a Removal Issue

Home Depot U.S.A., Inc. v. Jackson, 139 S. Ct. 1743 (2019). Among other changes made by the so-called Class Action Fairness Act of 2005, 28 U.S.C. 1453(b) ("CAFA") made it...

When New Issues Arise on Appeal, Appellate Division Should Conduct Oral Argument Even if No Party Originally Requested It

State in the Interest of D.M., 238 N.J. 2 (2019). In this juvenile delinquency case, neither the State nor defendant sought oral argument in the Appellate Division. The State, the...

The Supreme Court Decides Docket No. A-1-2018, Based on Plain Language of the Check Cashers Regulatory Act of 1993

Garden State Check Cashing Service, Inc. v. New Jersey Department of Banking and Insurance, 237 N.J. 482 (2019). As discussed here, this was the very first appeal of the current...

Where Sample Primary Election Ballots Are Required to be Printed in English and Spanish, Official Primary Ballots Must Also Be

Correa v. Grossi, 458 N.J. Super. 571 (App. Div. 2019). Multiple pieces of related legislation can be inconsistent, and courts are called on to harmonize them using classic principles of...

Judge Porter Issues His First Precedential Opinion

Madar v. Unites States Citizenship and Immigration Services, 918 F.3d 120 (3d Cir. 2019). Having been confirmed by the Senate as the newest member of the Third Circuit in October...

Assignor's Loss of a Mortgage Note Does Not Preclude Foreclosure by an Assignee

Investors Bank v. Torres, 457 N.J. Super. 53 (App. Div. 2018). In this foreclosure case, the plaintiff bank was the assignee of a note that was secured by a mortgage....

The Limitations Period for PIP Benefits Appeals From Decisions of Dispute Resolution Professionals

Personal Service Ins. Co. v. Relievus, 455 N.J. Super. 508 (App. Div. 2018). This opinion, issued by Judge Sumners today for a unanimous panel, concerned "whether a Law Division summary...

"Time of Application" Rule for Development Kicks in When All Documents Required by Ordinance Are Submitted

Dunbar Homes, Inc. v. Franklin Tp. Bd. of Adj., 233 N.J. 546 (2018). In a development application under the Municipal Land Use Law, N.J.S.A. 40:55D-1 et seq. ("MLUL"), the law...

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In Primary Election Dispute, the Supreme Court Declines to Rewrite Election Laws to Create Remedies Not Afforded by Those Statutes

Johnson v. Wilkerson, ___ N.J. ___ (2025). Chief Justice Rabner's opinion for a unanimous Court follows on the Court's September 19, 2025 Order that upheld a ruling by Judge Sabatino in an emergent appeal by a candidate for a Roselle council seat. That Order stated that an opinion would follow....

Appellate Division Oral Argument of the Week: Two Well-Known Law Firms Face Off Against Each Other, as Parties

Tomorrow, October 28, judges on Part E of the Appellate Division will hear oral argument in Nagel Rice, LLP v. Starkey, Kelly, Kenneally, Cunningham & Turnbach. It is relatively rare for one law firm to sue another, but that has occurred here....

Two Certified Question Cases From the Third Circuit, and a Related Grant of Leave to Appeal, for the Supreme Court

The Supreme Court announced that it has granted review in three new matters. Two of them involve questions certified to the Court by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, under Rule 2:12A. It is relatively rare for the Court to receive, and rarer for it to grant, petitions to decide certified questions, and it appears unprecedented for the Court to have granted review in two such cases at the same time. The other new case is a grant of leave to appeal to address one of the same issues presented in one of the certified question matters....

Still Another Committee on Character Anniversary

This blog has in the past noted anniversaries of Supreme Court decisions involving appeals from the Court's Committee on Character, on which I served for fifteen years. Today is another such anniversary, as on October 22, 1997, the Court decided In re Triffin, 151 N.J. 510 (1997)....