Due to my fifteen-year service on the Supreme Court of New Jersey Committee on Character, the date of any Supreme Court decision that implicates the Committee on Character is a significant date. On this date in 2000, the Supreme Court decided In re Jackman, 165 N.J. 580 (2000). The issues in that case, as summarized by Justice LaVecchia in her unanimous opinion for the Court, were “whether Steven B. Jackman, an applicant for admission to the bar of this State, engaged in the unauthorized practice of law while he was employed as an associate attorney in a New Jersey law firm prior to...

On this date in 1970, the Supreme Court decided Paterson Tavern & Grill Owners Ass’n v. Hawthorne, 57 N.J. 180 (1970). The issue in the case was whether an ordinance of the Borough of Hawthorne that forbade licensed taverns in the Borough from employing women as bartenders (with exceptions for women licensees who tended their own bars, or wives of male licensees) was valid. The ordinance had been adopted pursuant to the Borough’s police powers. The Appellate Division upheld that aspect of the ordinance at issue, which in that court and at the trial level also prohibited...

On this date in 1959, the Supreme Court decided Hodgson v. Applegate, 31 N.J. 29 (1959). Over sixty years later, that opinion is still cited with regularity in cases applying Court Rules relating to post-judgment motions and appeals. The case arose from plaintiff’s claim that defendants had breached an agreement to lease a gas station to plaintiff and had fraudulently concealed the terms of an existing lease on that premises. Plaintiff won a jury verdict for $8,500 in damages. Defendants did not timely move for a new trial. Nor did they appeal the jury verdict. Instead, 34 days after...