The Supreme Court announced that is has granted certification in three more cases. Two of them are criminal appeals. The third is an insurance case in which, due to a dissent in the Appellate Division, an appeal as of right was also filed and accepted by the Court. The insurance case is Katchen v. Government Employees Insurance Co. The question presented there, as phrased by the Supreme Court Clerk’s office, is “Among other issues in this dispute regarding uninsured (UM) and underinsured motorist (UIM) coverage, may an insurer exclude UIM coverage for an accident involving a...

Due to a Supreme Court brief, a major Appellate Division brief, some personal matters, and issues as to the hosting of this blog, there were no postings here for the last part of July. So this post is in the nature of a retroactive declaration of a hiatus. Hopefully, things will be (closer to) normal going forward. All that is not to say that the courts were inactive. One case in particular, in which Judge Currier wrote one of the longest and most detailed opinions of the current Term, deserves special mention. In ADP, LLC v. Kusins, ___ N.J. Super. ___ (App. Div. 2019), the Appellate...

Holtham v. Lucas, ___ N.J. Super. ___ (App. Div. 2019). As Judge Ostrer noted in the first sentence of his opinion in this case today, “[a]ccording to well-settled contract law, a provision that stipulates an unreasonably large amount of damages for a future breach is an unenforceable penalty.” The parties to this matrimonial case entered into a marital settlement agreement that contained a “per diem penalty of $150” for any breach of any duty under that agreement. When plaintiff failed to timely pay off a loan on a car that was to be distributed to his (ex-)wife and...