An Embarrassing Anniversary for Justice Holmes and the U.S. Supreme Court

Even Justice Holmes, one of the greatest Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, sometimes made extremely bad decisions.  Eighty five years ago today, in Buck v. Bell, 274 U.S. 200 (1927), Justice Holmes, joined by all other ...

Law Day

Today, May 1, is Law Day.  According to 36 U.S.C. §113, “Law Day, U.S.A., is a special day of celebration by the people of the United States in appreciation of their liberties and the reaffirmation of their loyalty to the ...

Interlocutory Appeal Treated as Final, But Appellant Loses Anyway

Rubessa v. Warner, 2012 WL 1468789 (App. Div. April 30, 2012).  In spite of frequent warnings that interlocutory appeals improperly brought as final will be dismissed, the Appellate Division occasionally overlooks that distinction and grants leave to appeal nunc pro tunc ...

A Municipality Sues the DEP: Mandamus and Other Theories

Township of Neptune v. New Jersey Dep’t of Environmental Protection, 425 N.J. Super. 422 (App. Div. 2012).  The Township of Neptune sued the DEP in the Law Division for an order requiring the DEP to perform certain dredging of a waterway and ...

An Important Decision Under the Evidence Rules

Konop v. Rosen, 425 N.J. Super. 391 (App. Div. 2012).  Trial lawyers and appellate lawyers take heed!  The Appellate Division, speaking through an encyclopedic opinion by Judge Messano, has issued one of the relatively rare appellate opinions about the application of the ...

Wikipedia in the Appellate Courts

A recent posting about citations to Wikipedia in the federal Circuit Courts of Appeals leads to the question of what the attitude is toward Wikipedia in the Supreme Court of New Jersey, the Appellate Division, and the Third Circuit Court ...

An Anniversary in the Law of Fiduciary Duties Between Business Partners

On this date in 1955, the Supreme Court of New Jersey decided Stark v. Reingold, 18 N.J. 251 (1955).  The case involved charges and counter-charges of wrongful conduct by partners in several related businesses.  The Court’s unanimous opinion, written by ...

An Organization is Not an “Individual”

Mohamad v. Palestinian Authority, 132 S.Ct. 1702 (2012).  When Justice Alito spoke at the last Third Circuit Conference, he said that most of the Supreme Court’s work does not deal with constitutional issues.  Rather, most cases involve statutory interpretation.  Some of those ...

“You Don’t Have to be Jewish …” (A Law Against Discrimination Case)

Cowher v. Carson & Roberts, 425 N.J. Super. 285 (App. Div. 2012).  Plaintiff Myron Cowher worked for a trucking company.  His two supervisors persistently hurled anti-Semitic epithets at him, including (among many others) “Jew Bag,” “Jew Bastard,”If you were a German, we ...

The GM Trucks Class Action Case

On this date in 1995, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals decided In re General Motors Corp. Pick-Up Truck Fuel Tank Products Liab. Litig., 55 F.3d 768 (3d Cir. 1995).  The opinion, written by Judge Becker, was a seminal decision when written ...