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...

Donald J. Trump for President, Inc. v. Secretary, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, ___ Fed. Appx. ___ (3d Cir. 2020). This blog does not often cover non-precedential decisions of appellate courts. But today’s opinion by Judge Bibas (a Trump appointee), in which Chief Judge Smith and Judge Chagares joined, is an important exception. The opinion was non-precedential because plaintiff (“the Campaign”) appealed the District court’s rejection of the Campaign’s attack on the vote in Pennsylvania only “on a very narrow ground: whether the District Court abused its...

West Pleasant-CPGT, Inc. v. U.S. Home Corp., ___ N.J. ___ (2020). [Disclosure: I represented the successful defendant in this appeal]. This unanimous decision by Justice LaVecchia today addressed an equitable remedy that lower courts have made available to foreclosure debtors in cases where a creditor has pursued a deficiency action in addition to acquiring the foreclosed property: the fair market value credit. As Justice LaVecchia carefully explained, the “fair market value credit has a role in preventing windfalls to creditors when a creditor forecloses on property and pursues a...