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

New Jersey Appellate Rule Amendments Effective September 1, 2011

The Supreme Court of New Jersey has adopted changes to two appellate rules. Both changes will go into effect on September 1, 2011. First, the list of judgments deemed to...

Independent of AT&T v. Concepcion, Arbitration Clauses in Consumer Contract Are Ineffective If They Conflict With Each Other

NAACP of Camden County East v. Foulke Management Corp., 421 N.J. Super. 404 (App. Div. 2011). This consumer class action was the occasion for another typically scholarly opinion by Judge Sabatino. Geraldine...

Residential Condominium Association is Not Liable for Sidewalk Injuries

Luchejko v. City of Hoboken, 207 N.J. 191 (2011). Sidewalk liability cases have bedeviled our Supreme Court for many years. In Stewart v. 104 Wallace Street, Inc., 87 N.J. 146 (1981),...

The Legislative Veto Cases

On this date in 1982, the Supreme Court of New Jersey decided two of the landmark separation of powers cases in New Jersey jurisprudence. The first case was General Assembly...

Latest U.S. Supreme Court Decision on Personal Jurisdiction is a New Jersey Case

J. McIntyre Machinery, Ltd. v. Nicastro, 131 U.S. 2780 (2011). Lawyers and judges sometimes refer to new cases that grow out of an older, seminal case as the "progeny" of...

A Rarity: The Supreme Court Will Answer Questions Certified to it by the Third Circuit

Rules 2:12A-1 et seq. provide a procedure under which the Third Circuit Court of Appeals can certify a question of law to the Supreme Court of New Jersey "if the...

29 Years Since Crowe v. DeGioia

On July 8, 1982, the Supreme Court decided Crowe v. DeGioia, 9o N.J. 126 (1982). The case has become the standard authority for the criteria for issuing preliminary injunctive relief. But attorneys...

Individual Owners, Officers or Employees, as Well as Their Companies, Can be Liable for Violation of Consumer Fraud Act Regulations

Allen v. V and A Bros., Inc.., 208 N.J. 114 (2011). The New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act, N.J.S.A. 56:8-1 et seq. ("CFA"), makes liable any "person" who violates the CFA. In...

It's Now "Justice Patterson"

Yesterday, by a 36-0 vote, the Senate rightly confirmed Anne Patterson as a Justice of the Supreme Court of New Jersey. She will assume the seat now held by Justice Rivera-Soto when...

The Supreme Court Discusses, for the First Time, Two Exceptions to the Open Public Records Act

Kovalcik v. Somerset County Prosecutor's Office, 206 N.J. 581 (2011). The Open Public Records Act, N.J.S.A. 47:1A-1 to -13 ("OPRA"), makes "government records," as broadly defined in OPRA, generally accessible. However, the right of access...

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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....