Clark v. Nenna, ___ N.J. Super. ___ (App. Div. 2020). After plaintiff broke his femur during a physical therapy session, he had surgery that stabilized his bone using screws and washers. The screw heads caused him discomfort, so he had another surgery, performed by defendant, to remove the screws. Defendant did that successfully. But defendant could not remove the washers because they were “embedded in scar tissue that had developed around the hardware.” Defendant decided to leave the washers where they were because removing them would have required a larger incision and would...

Ippolito v. Ippolito, ___ N.J. Super. ___ (App. Div. 2020); Garden State Investment v. Township of Brick, ___ N.J. Super. ___ (App. Div. 2020). Each of the last two days saw published opinions by Judge Fisher. Each one was short, and each involved the type of equitable issues for which Judge Fisher is perhaps best known. Ippolito v. Ippolito may be the name of the first case, but the case, an outgrowth of a “lengthy and hotly-contested matrimonial action,” is in fact about the effort of one of the parties’ law firms to get paid. One of the husband’s former attorneys...

Glassman v. Friedel, ___ N.J. Super. ___ (App. Div. 2020). Ciluffo v. Middlesex Gen’l Hosp., 146 N.J. Super. 476 (App. Div. 1977), was a case involving how to handle a plaintiff’s claims against “successive independent tortfeasors” when the plaintiff settles with fewer than all defendants and then tries his or her case against the others. That case held that, in order to “avoid duplicating compensation to the plaintiff,” a non-settling defendant was entitled to a “settlement credit” for part of the payment made by the settling defendant. The...