The past few days have been especially busy ones in my practice. The Appellate Division has likewise been quite busy issuing published opinions as January turned to February. Here are summaries of those opinions. City of Newark v. Township of Jefferson, ___ N.J. Super. ___ (App. Div. 2021). [Disclosure: My firm represents the City of Newark, but not in this case or matters of this type]. This opinion by Judge Mawla involved an appeal from the Tax Court, whose opinion appeared at 31 N.J. Tax. 303 (Tax Ct. 2019). The issue was the validity of the assessment of the subject property...

The Supreme Court announced Directive # 03-21, available here. That Directive supersedes Directive # 18-17. The new Directive “promulgates a revised set of Children in Court (CIC) standards as approved by the Supreme Court.” The standards themselves have been revised in various ways, as described in the Directive. Three appeal-related documents– the Acknowledgement of Appeal Rights Form (CN 11553), the Advisory Notice to Parents and Counsel When Parental Rights are Terminated (CN 10317), and the Appellate Division’s Administrative Protocol for termination of Parental...

Ippolito v. Ippolito, ___ N.J. Super. ___ (App. Div. 2020); Garden State Investment v. Township of Brick, ___ N.J. Super. ___ (App. Div. 2020). Each of the last two days saw published opinions by Judge Fisher. Each one was short, and each involved the type of equitable issues for which Judge Fisher is perhaps best known. Ippolito v. Ippolito may be the name of the first case, but the case, an outgrowth of a “lengthy and hotly-contested matrimonial action,” is in fact about the effort of one of the parties’ law firms to get paid. One of the husband’s former attorneys...