On April 1, 1957, the Supreme Court decided Fisch v. Manger, 24 N.J. 66 (1957). The key issue there was whether the practice of additur, under which a trial judge may, after a jury verdict, increase the amount of the verdict rather than ordering a new trial, if the defendant consents. The case involved an auto accident in which plaintiff was seriously injured. A jury awarded him just $3,000. Plaintiff moved for a new trial due to the inadequacy of the jury award. But defendants consented to an increase of the award to $7,500, so the trial judge denied plaintiff’s motion for a new trial. Plaint ..read more

This week, the Appellate Division decided two very different kinds of arbitration matters. Yesterday, Judge Sabatino issued an opinion in Morison v. Willingboro Bd. of Educ., ___ N.J. Super. ___ (App. Div. 2024). That case involved efforts of school districts to discipline or remove tenured teachers or administrators for improper conduct. Until 2012, such matters were handled in administrative hearings. But in 2012, the Legislature replaced that system with an arbitration procedure instead. The “novel issue” before the Appellate Division was “whether, under this revised system, a tenure arbitr ..read more

State v. Harrell, ___ N.J. ___ (2024). As discussed here, this case presented the following question for the Supreme Court: “Under the circumstances presented, is the alleged victim’s recorded statement from when she was eight years old admissible at trial now when she is fifteen and would testify that she recalls only one of the incidents of alleged sexual assault described in that statement?” The issue was whether admitting the testimony deprived defendant of the constitutional right to confront his accuser. The lower courts reached different conclusions on that issue. The Law Division barre ..read more

Jersey City United Against the New Ward Map v. Jersey City Ward Commission, ___ N.J. Super. ___ (App. Div. 2024). [Disclosure: My firm, Lite DePalma Greenberg & Afanador, LLC, represents the City of Jersey City and certain of its agencies in some matters but was not involved in this case]. The Municipal Ward Law, N.J.S.A. 40:44-9 to -18 (“the ML Law”), requires that municipalities that choose to adopt a ward structure for purposes of electing governing body members create a Ward Commission and review the ward boundaries every ten years. The Ward Commission is then to “proceed to make such ..read more

State v. Baker, ___ N.J. Super. ___ (App. Div. 2024). This opinion by Judge Currier, in a drug possession case, involved once again the automobile exception to the warrant requirement for a search. To summarize the facts, the police initially stopped defendants’ vehicle based on a reasonable suspicion of a motor vehicle violation because the vehicle had repeatedly swerved out of the traffic lanes and had then made an illegal u-turn. Once the vehicle had been stopped, the police determined that there were outstanding warrants for defendant, a traffic warrant and another warrant for violating pr ..read more

State v. Knight, ___ N.J. ___ (2024). In this opinion by Justice Pierre-Louis today, a unanimous Supreme Court twice stated that the facts of this case were “unique.” That is likely correct, as the summary of those facts by Justice Pierre-Louis shows: “Defendant Isaiah J. Knight was charged with murder. A witness to the murder gave a statement to police and identified defendant as the shooter. Thereafter, the witness met a woman online, and the woman took him to a residence in Newark. At some point after arriving at the residence and spending time with the woman in a room, three individuals, i ..read more

While the Supreme Court has been quiet since it handed down this decision, the Appellate Division has issued six published opinions during the recent period. Here are summaries of those opinions. In the Matter of Appointment of the Council on Affordable Housing by Governor Philip Murphy, ___ N.J. Super. ___ (App. Div. 2024). Despite what one might think based on the title of this case , it was not about Governor Murphy’s appointments to the Council on Affordable Housing (“COAH”). Rather, this appeal involved the complaint of seventeen municipalities that Governor Murphy had failed to fill vaca ..read more

The Supreme Court announced today that it has granted certification in two new cases, both involving Megan’s Law. The cases, In the Matter of J.A. and In the Matter of Registrant R.H. (consolidated with In the Matter of Registrant T.L.) present essentially the same question. As phrased by the Supreme Court Clerk’s office in J.A., that question is “Is the provision of N.J.S.A. 2C: -2(f) that prevents termination of Megan’s Law registration requirements if the registrant committed another offense within fifteen years constitutional when applied to juvenile offenders?” In J.A., a two-judge Appell ..read more

Yesterday and today each saw a decision by the Supreme Court in criminal matters. Today’s ruling in State v. Hill, ___ N.J. ___ (2024), authored by Justice Wainer Apter, involved defendant’s convictions for carjacking and witness tampering. The issue for the Court was “whether the State’s witness tampering statute, N.J.S.A. 2C:28-5(a), is unconstitutionally overbroad on its face or was unconstitutionally applied to defendant William Hill.” As discussed here, the witness tampering charge arose after defendant had been charged with first-degree carjacking a vehicle belonging to a woman whose ini ..read more

Allure Pet Products, LLC v. Donnelly Marketing & Development LLC, ___ N.J. Super. ___ (App. Div. 2024). Today’s opinion by Judge Sabatino in this case dealt with the question of personal jurisdiction over defendants, a Utah company and its owner, to address the claim of the New Jersey plaintiff. In summary, the company “entered into a contract to reserve exhibition space for plaintiff, a New Jersey pet product supplier, at a biannual trade show in Germany planned for 2020. The trade show was eventually postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the company and its owner declined to re ..read more