Unsuccessful litigants sometimes try to persuade appellate courts to reconsider and amend or reverse their decisions.  Rarely does that succeed.  On this day in 1972, however, the Supreme Court, acting on new information provided not by a losing party, but by intervenors who joined the case after the Court’s initial decision, amended its original judgment in favor of the intervenors.

The case was Affiliated Distillers Brands Corp. v. Sills, 60 N.J. 342 (1972).   There, in a prior opinion reported at 56 N.J. 251 (1969), the Court had ruled that a “grandfather c

New Jersey Department of Children & Families v. E.L., ___ N.J. Super. ___ (App. Div. 2018).  Courts often give public entity parties more leeway in complying with rules, court orders, and the like than private parties are given.  Sometimes Court Rules themselves give preference to public agencies, as is so, for example, of Rule 2:9-6(b), which exempts the State, its political subdivisions, and “any of their respective officers or agencies” fro

On this date in 1961, the Supreme Court decided 525 Main St. Corp. v. Eagle Roofing Corp., 34 N.J. 251 (1961).  The Court’s opinion, a 5-0 decision, was written by Chief Justice Weintraub.

The case involved a roof on an industrial building.  Defendant contracted with the assignor of plaintiff to repair the roof, and defendant gave a five-year guarantee against leaks, along with a promise to repair.  After about two years, leaks appeared.  Defendant made some repairs but then refused to do anything further.  Plaintiff got another roofer to repair the roof and then