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...

New Jersey Republican State Committee v. Murphy, ___ N.J. ___ (2020). As discussed here, the Supreme Court directly certified a challenge to the recently adopted COVID-19 Emergency Bond Act. After hearing oral argument last week, the Court moments ago issued a unanimous opinion by Chief Justice Rabner that upheld the constitutionality of the Act. The Court’s 57-page opinion described in detail the history, going back to the 1844 Constitution, of key provisions of the current 1947 New Jersey Constitution at issue: the Appropriations Clause of Article VIII, section 2, paragraph 2, the...

The power outage resulting from last week’s storm put a crimp in much of that week. So it is time once again to catch up with our Supreme Court and Appellate Division, each of whom took highly consequential actions during that time. Some of those are summarized below. State v. G.E.P., ___ N.J. ___ (2020). This case (actually, four consolidated cases) addressed whether and to what extent the Court’s decision in State v. J.L.G., 234 N.J. 265 (2018), should apply retroactively. In J.L.G., the Court “reassessed” its prior decision in State v. J.Q., 130 N.J. 554 (1993),...