NJ Appellate Law Blog – NJ Appellate Lawyer Bruce D. Greenberg blogs about Appeals and Appellate Law Practice

Municipal Collective Bargaining Agreement as to Health Insurance Premium Contribution Rates is Overridden by State Statute

In re Ridgefield Park Bd. of Educ., 244 N.J. 1 (2020). The question in this case was whether health insurance premium contribution rates for members of the Ridgefield Park Education...

Breaking News: Supreme Court Unanimously Upholds the Constitutionality of the COVID-19 Emergency Bond Act

New Jersey Republican State Committee v. Murphy, 243 N.J. 574 (2020). As discussed here, the Supreme Court directly certified a challenge to the recently adopted COVID-19 Emergency Bond Act. After...

The "Foregone Conclusion" Doctrine Requires a Criminal Defendant to Reveal the Passcode to His Passcode-Protected Cellphone

State v. Andrews, 243 N.J. 447 (2020). In a 4-3 decision that produced lengthy majority and dissenting opinions, the Supreme Court held that it does not violate a criminal defendant's...

Powering Up Again

The power outage resulting from last week's storm put a crimp in much of that week. So it is time once again to catch up with our Supreme Court and...

Consumer Fraud Act and Product Liability Act Claims Can Co-Exist

Sun Chemical Corp. v. Fike Corp., 243 N.J. 319 (2020). This opinion by Justice Solomon today resolved another question (originally, multiple questions, but reformulated into a single question by the...

Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing on Pierre-Louis Supreme Court Nomination Set for August 24

In a joint announcement, Senate President Steve Sweeney, D-Gloucester, and Judiciary Committee Chair Nicholas Scutari, D-Union, revealed that the Judiciary Committee will take up Governor Murphy's nomination of Fabiana Pierre-Louis...

Municipal Special Assessment Invalid Where Expert Report on Which it Was Premised Lacked a Rational Basis

Crispino v. Sparta Tp., 243 N.J. 234 (2020). By statute, the Legislature has delegated to municipalities the power to impose special assessments on property owners to fund improvements that benefit...

Entire Controversy Doctrine Does Not Bar Second Case Brought by Party Who, as a Defendant, Defeated a Prior Case for Failure to State a Claim

Bank Leumi USA v. Kloss, 243 N.J. 218 (2020). As discussed here, this was a case involving a certified question from the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, and for the...

Straight to the Supreme Court for the New Jersey Republican State Committee's Constitutional Challenge to the New Jersey COVID-19 Emergency Bond Act

On July 16, the New Jersey Republican State Committee and other plaintiffs filed suit against Governor Murphy in the Law Division, Mercer County. The lawsuit asserts that the New Jersey...

Two More for the Supreme Court

The Supreme Court announced today that it has granted review in two new cases. In one case, the Court granted certification. In the other, there was a dissent in the...

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Sentencing Counsel's Limited Investigation of Defendant's Citizenship Was Not Constitutionally Ineffective in the Circumstances

State v. Hernandez-Peralta, ___ N.J. ___ (2025). Justice Wainer Apter's decision today for a 5-2 Supreme Court majority began by phrasing the issue presented. "In this appeal, we consider whether sentencing counsel was constitutionally ineffective for failing to investigate defendant's citizenship status beyond asking him if he was a United States citizen and receiving an unequivocal ‘yes,' and therefore not advising him that his plea could make him subject to deportation." The majority found, based on the particular facts, that counsel was not constitutionally ineffective, reversing the two lower courts. Justice Noriega, joined by Justice Fasciale, dissented....

The 2025-26 General Assignment Order

Chief Justice Rabner announced the 2025-26 General Assignment Order. It is available here....

New Jersey's Charity Care Program for Hospitals is Not a Per Se Unconstitutional Taking of Property

Englewood Hospital & Medical Center v. State, ___ N.J. ___ (2025). New Jersey has had a charity care program, in one form or another, for 178 years. As Justice Fasciale summarized the current charity care program in his opinion for a unanimous Supreme Court, under the current program "hospitals cannot turn away a patient for inability to pay, N.J.S.A. 26:2H-18.64, and patients who qualify for charity care shall not be billed for services rendered, N.J.A.C. 10:52-11.4. Instead, ‘disproportionate share hospitals' (DSHs), or hospitals that serve a disproportionate number of low-income patients, see N.J.S.A. 26:2H-18.52, receive annual subsidies from the Health Care Subsidy Fund (HCSF) in exchange for providing charity care, see N.J.S.A. 26:2H-18.52, .58, .58d."...

A Municipal Court Administrator is Employed by the Township, Not the Administrative Office of the Courts

Palmisano v. State of New Jersey Administrative Office of the Courts, ___ N.J. Super. ___ (App. Div. 2025). The opening paragraph of Judge Marczyk's opinion for the Appellate Division well encapsulates what the appeal was about and what the result was. "Plaintiff Lindsay Palmisano appeals from the trial court's April 1, 2024 order dismissing her complaint with prejudice against defendant State of New Jersey Administrative Office of the Courts and Municipal Division (AOC) pursuant to Rule 4:6-2(e). The primary issue on appeal is whether plaintiff, a municipal court administrator, is an employee of the AOC, thereby allowing her to assert a claim against the AOC under the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination (LAD), N.J.S.A. 10:5-1 to -49. Based on our review of the record and the applicable legal principles, we conclude plaintiff was employed by Vernon Township (Township), not the AOC, and, therefore, we affirm."...