On June 1, 1978, the Supreme Court decided Merenoff v. Merenoff, 76 N.J. 535 (1978). Involving two cases, Justice Handler’s unanimous opinion for the Supreme Court addressed “the issue of whether the claim of a husband or wife for damages for personal injuries arising from a domestic or household accident attributable to the negligence of the other spouse is barred by the doctrine of interspousal tort immunity.” The history and evolution of interspousal immunity, however, which Justice Handler laid out at length, played a big role in the Court’s decision to abrogate the immunity in its ruling ..read more

Arbus, Maybruch & Goode, LLC v. Cohen, ___ N.J. Super. ___ (App. Div. 2023). In this suit by a law firm to collect its fee from a client (actually, an individual his company), the Law Division granted summary judgment to the plaintiff law firm. The defendant clients appealed, but today the Appellate Division, applying de novo review, affirmed in an opinion by Judge Berdote Byrne. Plaintiff had represented defendants in two matters for over two years pursuant to written retainer agreements. Plaintiff’s practice was to bill hourly matters in one-tenth of an hour increments, but its retainer ..read more

The Supreme Court announced that it has granted certification in two new appeals. Those cases each involve arbitration, though in differing respects. In County of Passaic v. Horizon Healthcare Services, Inc., the question presented, as phrased by the Supreme Court Clerk’s office, is “Under the circumstances presented, was the arbitration clause unenforceable under Atalese v. U.S. Legal Services Group, L.P., 219 N.J. 430 (2014), because it lacked an explicit waiver of the right to seek relief in a court of law?” In an unpublished opinion, a three-judge panel of the Appellate Division affirmed t ..read more

Erie Ins. Exchange v. Erie Indemnity Co., ___ F.4th ___ (3d Cir. 2023). As Judge Smith stated in his opinion in this case, the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005, Pub. L. No. 109-2, 119 Stat. 4 (“CAFA”), considers a state court proceeding as a “class action” subject to removal only if “it is ‘filed under’ a ‘State statute or rule of judicial procedure’ that ‘authoriz[es] an action to be brought by 1 or more representative persons as a class action’ and otherwise is ‘similar’ to [Federal Rules of Civil Procedure] Rule 23. 28 U.S.C. § 1332(d)(1)(b).” Appealing from a District Court decision that ..read more

Pace v. Hamilton Cove, ___ N.J. Super. ___ (App. Div. 2023). Class action waivers have infested numerous areas of our commercial lives, including cellphone contracts, banking agreements, and other documents. This opinion by Judge Geiger involved a class action waiver that appeared in residential leases at a luxury three-building apartment complex in Weehawken that comprised hundreds of apartments. The leases also included a three-day attorney review provision that allowed tenants to opt out of the leases during that time. Absent withdrawal from a lease within three days, the leases provided th ..read more

Joe Fischetti is an attorney who practiced at one of New Jersey’s largest private firms for a number of years. More recently, he moved to an in-house position in the health care industry. Since 2020, Joe has been tweeting (@FischettiJA) about all things New Jersey courts, state and federal. His tweets offer history, commentary on court appointments, assignments, and retirements, a terrific set of Supreme Court of New Jersey year in review statistics, and a wealth of other interesting subjects that are too varied to categorize or easily summarize. I’m not a Twitter guy, but I check Joe’s Twitte ..read more

On May 16, 1949, the Supreme Court decided A. Hollander & Son, Inc. v. Imperial Fur Blending Corp., 2 N.J. 235 (1949). A unanimous opinion by Justice Wachenfeld, the decision expressed a number of fundamental principles regarding restrictive employment covenants that the Supreme Court subsequently cited in such cases for many years. The case is perhaps best known for that. But the opinion also contained an important discussion of the doctrine of unclean hands, concluding that the doctrine was inapplicable on the facts of that case and offering guidance for the future. Defendant Philip Sing ..read more

Today, Governor Murphy announced his nomination of Michael Noriega to the Supreme Court. He would fill the seat that was vacated when Justice Albin reached the mandatory retirement age of 70. That seat has been temporarily occupied by Judge Sabatino. The son of immigrants from Peru, Mr. Noriega is a “Jersey guy” through and through. He is a product of St. Peter’s Prep, Rutgers University, and Seton Hall School of Law. After serving as a Public Defender in Essex County for six years, he operated his own law firm, Noriega & Associates, with an emphasis on immigration and criminal law. Mr. No ..read more

Accounteks.net, Inc. v. CKR Law, LLP, ___ N.J. Super. ___ (App. Div. 2023). The Appellate Division sometimes publishes one version of an opinion and designates as unpublished a longer version that contains discussion of one or more issues not deemed worthy, for whatever reason, of appearing in a published opinion. That was the case with this opinion by Judge Smith. The case involved breach of a restrictive employment covenant by a former employee of plaintiff, Montes, an information technology consulting firm, and his new employer, CKR Law, LLP (“CKR”), a law firm customer of plaintiff, which ..read more

The Supreme Court announced that it has granted leave to appeal in State v. Knight. The question presented, as phrased by the Supreme Court Clerk’s office, is “Where a witness who identified defendant as the shooter in connection with a murder prosecution later gave a sworn statement stating that he was held at gunpoint by defendant’s relatives and forced to sign an affidavit recanting his identification of defendant, can the defense be compelled to produce any recantation affidavits that may be in its possession?” A three-judge panel of the Appellate Division, in an unpublished opinion, affir ..read more