Raji v. Saucedo, ___ N.J. Super. ___ (App. Div. 2019). Judge Fisher’s first published opinion of the current Term was another model of concision, consuming less than eight pages. The appeal involved a landlord-tenant situation, in which tenants had not paid rent and the landlord sued for and obtained possession. The parties entered into a so-called “pay and go” judgment, which entitled plaintiff to possession but also fixed defendants’ financial obligations.
Defendants did not make the required payments, so plaintiff filed a new action to enforce the financial terms of the “pay and go” judgment. In response, defendants filed a counterclaim for unjust enrichment and for an additional claim for monetary damages. The Law Division ruled for plaintiff on her complaint and rejected defendants’ counterclaim. The judge found that, in settling the action for possession, the parties had reached an accord and satisfaction that resolved all disputes between them and precluded defendants from asserting the counterclaim in the second case. The Law Division also found defendants’ testimony not credible, while crediting plaintiff’s testimony.
Defendants appealed, asserting that the Law Division had wrongly applied the entire controversy doctrine against them. They also asked the Appellate Division to exercise original jurisdiction and to enter judgment for them, a suggestion that Judge Fisher rejected “out of hand.” He noted that “[a]ppellate courts do not lightly exercise original jurisdiction in disputed circumstances like this, and particularly when the trial judge has already found defendants failed to offer credible evidence to support their counterclaim.”
On the merits, Judge Fisher “reject[ed] defendants’ premise that the judge applied the entire controversy doctrine.” Instead, he observed that “when negotiating and consenting to a pay-and-go agreement, parties inherently intend to resolve all differences arising out of the tenancy and enter into what the law refers to as an accord and satisfaction: a mutual exchange of interests that fully discharges all claims, replacing them with the judgment’s express terms.” Thus, in the second action, both parties were limited to claims “based on a breach of the pay-and-go judgment that memorialized their agreement” the first case. Defendants’ counterclaim was thus rightly rejected, and the panel affirmed the decision below.