Grow Company, Inc. v. Chokshi, 424 N.J. Super. 357 (App. Div. 2012). This is yet another in what seems to be an endless stream of appeals of awards of attorneys’ fees. That stream flows despite the Supreme Court’s admonition in several cases, ...
Walker v. Giuffre, 209 N.J. 124 (2012). In Walker and Humphries v. Powder Mill Shopping Plaza, two different Appellate Division panels had each ruled that restrictive principles governing attorneys’ fee awards under federal fee-shifting statutes, as expressed in Perdue v. Kenny A., ___ U.S. ___, 130 ...
Fox v. Vice, 131 S.Ct. 2205 (2011). The Civil Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. §1983, includes a fee-shifting provision, 42 U.S.C. §1988. Most often, it is a prevailing plaintiff who seeks fees under that provision. But section 1988 allows a prevailing defendant ...
Smith v. Hudson County Register, 2011 WL 1529730 (App. Div. April 25, 2011). This opinion, by Judge Sabatino, applied the catalyst doctrine to an Open Public Records Act (“OPRA”) case. In Mason v. Hoboken, 196 N.J. 51 (2008), also an OPRA case, ...
Saffos v. Avaya, Inc., 419 N.J. Super. 244 (App. Div. 2011). A jury found that defendant Avaya’s termination of plaintiff’s employment had violated the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination (“NJLAD”), in that the termination was part of a pattern of firing older ...
Jones v. Hayman, 418 N.J. Super. 291 (App. Div. 2011). This was a class action suit by women inmates against the Department of Corrections (“DOC”). The key question in the case, as stated by Judge Fisher in his opinion for the Appellate Division, was ...
The Supreme Court of New Jersey has granted certification to review that portion of the decision in Walker v. Giuffre, 415 N.J. Super. 597 (App. Div. 2010), that involved an enhancement of the fees of the plaintiff’s counsel under the ...
Porreca v. City of Millville, 419 N.J. Super. 212 (App. Div. 2011). Rule 4:42-9(a)(2) permits recovery of attorneys’ fees from a “fund in court.” Porreca, a decision written by Judge Axelrad, held that the plaintiff’s counsel could seek a fee based on the “tangible ...
D. Russo, Inc. v. Union Tp., ___ N.J. Super. ___ (App. Div. 2010). In Mason v. Hoboken, 196 N.J. 51 (2008), an Open Public Records Act (“OPRA”) case, the Supreme Court of New Jersey declined to follow Buckhannon Bd. & ...
Sisolak v. Briarwood Sportsman’s Club, 2010 WL 4483387 (App. Div. Nov. 10, 2010). This opinion states that while it is “generally preferable to have counsel fee applications filed contemporaneously with, or shortly after, the entry of a final order disposing ...