A Reminder From the Appellate Division About Confidential Information

A Notice to the Bar, dated September 1, 2021, was published late yesterday. It is available here. Issued by Judge Messano, the Notice is titled “APPELLATE DIVISION REMINDER TO COUNSEL REGARDING SUBMISSION OF CONFIDENTIAL DOCUMENTS AND OTHER ISSUES CONCERNING CONFIDENTIALITY.” ...

An Adverse Inference Arising From Spoliation Cannot Arise in Order to Allow a Party to Prove a Claim Against a Non-Party to the Case

27-35 Jackson Avenue, LLC v. Samsung Fire & Marine Ins. Co., Ltd., ___ N.J. Super. ___ (App. Div. 2021). This opinion, issued today and authored by Judge Messano, is the first published Appellate Division of the new Term. It arose ...

The Next Several Weeks

This year, the fall Jewish holidays (Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and Sukkot) all land on weekdays. As a result of that and certain other things, posts on this blog will be only intermittent, or even just sparse, during these next ...

For the First Week of the New Term, Appellate Division Panels Adopt Varying Practices for Oral Argument

The Appellate Division’s calendar for the week of September 13, the first week of the new court Term, has been published and is available here. While it may be too soon to make any judgments about how the Appellate Division ...

Public Employees on Temporary Disability Must Still Contribute to State Health Benefit Costs Based on “Base Salary,” Rather Than Based on Benefits Received

Grillo v. State of New Jersey, ___ N.J. Super. ___ (App. Div. 2021). In 2011, legislation (“Chapter 78”) changed the way that State Health Benefits Plan (“SHBP”) benefits were provided to public employees participating in that program. Chapter 78 required ...

A Practice Tip: When a Judge is Rendering an Oral Opinion, Don’t Interrupt and Call Him/Her “Corrupt”

Bascom Corporation v. Paterson Coalition for Housing, Inc., 2021 N.J. Super. Unpub. LEXIS 1846 (App. Div. Aug. 24, 2021). Periodically, our appellate courts offer lessons in “what not to do” or “how not to behave.” The Appellate Division did just ...

Judge Jane Grall (1949-2021)

Judge Jane Grall died on August 20 at age 72. A graduate of Trinity College in Washington, DC, she taught social studies in Cranford for six years before attending Rutgers Law School in Camden. She clerked for Judge Matthews in ...

Catching Up Again, With the Supreme Court and the Appellate Division

After this post about the Supreme Court’s busy August, that Court decided two more cases. Both were criminal appeals. Here are summaries: State v. Hannah, ___ N.J. ___ (2021). This was a case involving murder and other charges. Defendant was ...

One More Case, An Appeal as of Right, for the Supreme Court

It had been four weeks since the Supreme Court last took up a new case. But now a new appeal, perhaps the final one to reach the Court in the current term, has joined the docket. That case is State ...

A Busy August for the Supreme Court So Far

August is often a busy month for the Supreme Court, as the Justices count down to the new Term by deciding most if not all of the remaining cases from the current Term. This year is no exception. So far, ...