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 Supreme Court term. Today, in a unanimous opinion by Justice Timpone, the Court applied the plain language of the statute at issue and reversed the Appellate Division.
Justice Timpone’s first paragraph laid out the background law. “The New Jersey Check Cashers Regulatory Act of 1993, N.J.S.A. 17:15A-30 to -52 (Act), generally prohibits the licensure of check cashing businesses within 2500 feet of existing check cashing businesses, N.J.S.A. 17:15A-41(e), unless the business was already in operation when the Act was passed, N.J.S.A. 17:15A-50(a) (Grandfather Clause). A 1998 amendment to the Act permitted a business to sell its assets without losing its grandfathered status. L.1998, c.104, § 1 (codified at N.J.S.A. 17:15A-32.1) (Amendment).” The question before the Court was “whether the Amendment’s language limiting its application to ‘[a] person who is conducting business as a check casher’ requires the seller to be actively engaged in continuous business operation at the time of a sale.”
Domenick Pucillo, who had operated three check cashing businesses, stopped doing so in October 2014 and then sold his assets New Loan Co. Wm. S. Rich & Sons, Inc. (“New Loan”). New Loan applied to the Department of Banking and Insurance (“DOBI”) for a license, but plaintiff Garden State Check Cashing Service, Inc. (“Garden State”), a nearby competitor, objected. which operated a check cashing business located within 2500 feet of one of the check cashing businesses–objected to the license application. New Loan contended that Pucillo had lost any grandfathered status because he was not “conducting business as a check casher” at the time of the asset sale.
DOBI granted the license. Garden State appealed, and the Appellate Division reversed. Today, the Supreme Court reversed and reinstated DOBI’s ruling, applying de novo review to the issue of statutory interpretation that the case presented.
Justice Timpone noted that “[t]he Legislature’s intent is the paramount goal when interpreting a statute and, generally, the best indicator of that intent is the statutory language.” The Court found DOBI’s view of the language of the Amendment to be the correct one. “DOBI rationally read the Amendment language as merely referring to a person who has a valid and active license under the Act to operate a check cashing business at a specific location. We see no reason to disturb that interpretation by reading an operational requirement into the statute’s language. Essentially, the grandfathered distance-requirement exemption runs with the licensed location; it does not depend on the individual running the business to be actively engaged in check cashing activity daily.”
In fact, the Court said, the contrary view would produce an absurd result. “[C]heck cashing business owners who temporarily cease operations –for example, due to a family leave absence or long vacation –would lose their ability to sell their business assets upon return. [Citations]. Tying the grandfathered status to the individual’s activity–instead of the licensed location–would effectively deflate the value of an individual’s check cashing business by making the business’s assets difficult or impossible to sell.”