State by Commissioner of Transportation v. St. Mary’s Church Gloucester, ___ N.J. Super. ___ (2020). This appeal was about how to calculate interest on a portion of a just compensation award that resulted from proceedings for condemnation of certain real property owned by the defendant Church. The award exceeded the amount that had been deposited in court, as estimated compensation, prior to the condemnation proceedings, so the question was what interest rate applied to the unposted balance. The Appellate Division’s opinion today, written by Judge DeAlmeida, applied de novo...

Premier Comp Solutions, LLC v. UPMC, ___ F.3d ___ (3d Cir. 2020). Under Rule 15 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, amendments to pleadings are liberally granted. But when a Scheduling Order sets a deadline for amending pleadings, Rule 16(b)(4) requires “good cause” for an amendment. In this case, plaintiff sought to add a defendant after an amendment deadline had passed (and after that deadline had been extended once). Plaintiff’s motion relied only on Rule 15’s “liberally granted” standard. When the UPMC defendants opposed the motion and called...

Repko v. Our Lady of Lourdes Medical Center, Inc., ___ N.J. Super. ___ (App. Div. 2020). Judge Accurso’s brief opinion in this case today addressed a “question [that] appears to be one of first impression in New Jersey”: whether a decedent’s estate can apply Rule 4:9-3, the “relation back” rule, to a complaint that was not filed until after the plaintiff in the case had already died. The answer was “no.” Judge Accurso rightly observed that “the timeline is everything in this case,” so here it is. In September 2016, Carolyn Repko...