This week saw two Supreme Court opinions and one published Appellate Division decision. Here are summaries:

Smith v. Newark Community Health Centers, Inc., ___ N.J. ___ (2026). This was a case under the Charitable Immunity Act (“CIA”). Unlike many CIA cases, the issue was not whether the CIA applied, but whether defendant, “a federally qualified health center founded to ‘provide affordable, quality healthcare,’” including medical and dental care, to underserved populations, was entitled to full immunity under N.J.S.A. 2A:53A-7(a), as an entity “organized exclusively for religious, charitable or educational purposes,” or only to the benefit of a $250,000 cap on damages under N.J.S.A. 2A:53A-8, as an entity “organized exclusively for hospital purposes.” In a unanimous opinion by Justice Wainer Apter, the Court applied de novo review and held that defendant, though not a hospital, was organized “for hospital purposes.” Less than .3% of defendant’s funding came from charitable sources, and it was clear that defendant was not organized exclusively for religious or educational purposes, so full immunity was unavailable. The Court reversed the grant of summary judgment to defendant that the Law Division granted, and the Appellate Division had affirmed, and remanded for further proceedings.

Rosetti v. Ramapo-Indian Hills Regional High School Bd. of Educ., ___ N.J. ___ (2026). The Court’s opinion in this appeal, by Justice Pierre-Louis, was also unanimous. The issue was whether logs of personal, private email accounts containing government-related emails are government records pursuant to the Open Public Records Act (“OPRA”). Plaintiff’s OPRA request was for “email logs of all past and current Board members for all email accounts in which they have conducted or discussed Board of Education matters.” The Law Division denied that request, but the Appellate Division reversed in an opinion reported at 481 N.J. Super. 1 (App. Div. 2025) and discussed here. On further review, the Supreme Court affirmed as modified. Plaintiff’s OPRA request was overbroad, in that it “seemingly requested logs of entire private email accounts, irrespective of the amount of non-government-related messages the accounts might contain,” and the Appellate Division’s ruling was similarly problematic. Logs of private email accounts do not become government records subject to OPRA merely because there are government-related emails among others within the accounts. Only a log of government-related emails is a government record required to be produced under OPRA.

In re Expungement of the Criminal/Juvenile Records of A.W., ___ N.J. Super. ___ (App. Div. 2026). Judge Augostini wrote the panel’s opinion in this appeal. The start of her opinion well summarized what would follow. “[W]e are presented for the first time with the question of whether an individual subject to parole supervision for life (PSL), N.J.S.A. 2C:43 -6.4, is ineligible to seek an expungement. A.W. and C.M. (collectively petitioners) appeal from January 21, 2025 orders denying their expungement applications. Petitioners are subject to Megan's Law, N.J.S.A. 2C:7-1 to -23, and PSL because of prior convictions for which they are not seeking expungement. Instead, they are seeking to have subsequent convictions expunged while they remain subject to PSL. On appeal, petitioners assert N.J.S.A. 2C:52-2(a)'s five-year provision requiring completion of court-ordered obligations, including parole, relates only to convictions for which a petitioner seeks expungement. assert that PSL is not parole because it is a ‘punitive authorized disposition . . . untethered to a person’s carceral sentence.’ We disagree and affirm the orders. We hold that a petitioner who remains subject to PSL, a form of parole, is ineligible to submit an expungement application until he or she has been released from parole supervision in accordance with N.J.S.A. 2C:43-6.4(c).”