To date, 2022 has not been kind to this blog. Down for a period of time due to malware, and then only partially restored, the blog is now fully ready for the new year. But the New Jersey appellate law world did not stop during that time. Here are some summaries of developments, decisional and otherwise, since January 1: The legislative term expired, and with it Governor Murphy’s nomination of Rachel Wainer Apter to fill Justice LaVecchia’s seat on the Supreme Court. After the new legislative term began, the Governor announced that he would renominate her for the seat. There is...

Today is a court holiday for New Jersey state and federal courts. That affords an opportunity to catch up with this week’s published opinions from the Supreme Court,, the Appellate Division, and the Third Circuit. Here are summaries of those rulings (the Third Circuit also issued some published immigration decisions this week, which are not covered here): Glassman v. Friedel, ___ N.J. ____ (2021). In this unanimous opinion by Justice Patterson, the Court “address[ed] the allocation of damages in cases in which a plaintiff asserts claims against successive tortfeasors and settles...

Jefferson v. Lias, ___ F.4th ___ (3d Cir. 2021). Back in 2019, this post discussed a circumstance where two of the three judges on a Third Circuit panel filed an opinion concurring in the panel’s unanimous opinion, of which those two judges were, of course, also part. Yesterday, a panel of three other Third Circuit judges went that one better in this case, which was brought under the Civil Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. 1983, and on other theories. The case involved “a police shooting that occurred during the course of a car chase,” as Judge Restrepo summarized it in his unanimous...