On this date in 1986, the Supreme Court decided Ridgewood v. Bolder Foundation, 104 N.J. 337 (1986). The issue there was “whether a taxpayer may reduce, for real estate tax assessment purposes, the value of property because of a conservation easement thereon that it granted in perpetuity to a conservation foundation.” The Bergen County Tax Board permitted the taxpayer to reduce the property’s value, but the Tax Court, substantially affirmed by the Appellate Division, took the opposite view. Judge Antell, an Appellate Division judge temporarily assigned to the Supreme Court,...

On this date in 1977, the Supreme Court decided Baxter v. Fairmont Food Co., 74 N.J. 588 (1977). The Court’s unanimous opinion, written by Chief Justice Hughes, has been cited nearly 500 times by judicial decisions in the 43 years since its issuance. As the Chief Justice noted at the outset of his opinion, the case involved “the sometimes troublesome question of the extent and nature of judicial power, whether that of a trial or appellate court, to overrule a jury verdict, not on the basis of trial error on questions of law, but because of claimed discordance between the verdict...

Narleski v. Gomes, ___ N.J. ___ (2020). Near the beginning of his opinion for a unanimous Supreme Court in this case, Justice Albin summarized the issue: “Under our statutes and case law, a social host over the age of twenty-one has a duty not to serve alcohol to a visibly intoxicated guest, either an adult or a minor,if it is reasonably foreseeable the guest is about to drive. This case presents a variation on that theme. Does a young adult, over the age of eighteen but under the age of twenty-one –an adult under the lawful drinking age –have a duty not to facilitate the...