Mejia v. Quest Diagnostics, Inc., ___ N.J. ___ (2020). Today’s opinion by Justice Fernandez-Vina, for a unanimous Supreme Court, involved “whether a third-party defendant, facing only claims for contribution and common-law indemnification from an original defendant that did not file an affidavit of merit against him, must participate in the trial establishing the underlying liability.” The Court concluded that the third-party defendant was required to participate at trial, affirming the decisions of both the Law Division and the Appellate Division to that effect. The case...

Kornbleuth v. Westover, ___ N.J. ___ (2020). The Supreme Court of the United States frequently seems to split 5-4. It is relatively rare for the Supreme court of New Jersey to split 4-3. Yesterday, in a case involving the unauthorized removal by one set of neighbors of a “fence” made of bamboo on the neighboring residential property, was one of those times. There were two issues before the Court: (1) sanctions imposed against plaintiffs’ counsel, who (having been designated as trial counsel pursuant to Rule 4:25-4) was unwilling to proceed with trial because his associate...

State v. Thompson, ___ N.J. Super. ___ (App. Div. 2020). Judge Fisher, in this ruling issued today in a DWI case, “readily acknowledge[d] this opinion expresses nothing new.” One might wonder, then, why the opinion was designated for publication. Rule 1:36-2(d) provides a number of “guidelines” under which opinions “shall be published.” Several of those guidelines relate, in one way or another, to whether an opinion (to paraphrase Judge Fisher) “expresses something new.” But Judge Fisher explained that today’s opinion was being published...