In re Attorney General Law Enforcement Directive Nos. 2020-5 and 2020-6, ___ N.J. Super. ___ (App. Div. 2020). Here is how Judge Accurso began her opinion for the Appellate Division in this important case: “Responding to state and national demands for accountability and reform of law enforcement following the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police, Attorney General Gurbir S. Grewal announced in June that he would end New Jersey’s decades-long practice of shielding the identities of law enforcement officers receiving major discipline for misconduct. Determining...

Libertarians for Transparent Government v. Cumberland County, ___ N.J. Super. ___ (App. Div. 2020). Judge Accurso issued this opinion for the Appellate Division today, the first published opinion in a civil case of this new Term. It arose under the Open Public Records Act, N.J.S.A. 47:1A-1 et Seettlement seq., a statute doubtless familiar to readers of this blog. Judge Accurso well encapsulated the issue and the panel’s resolution of it in the first two sentences of her opinion: “The central issue on this appeal is whether a settlement agreement between defendant Cumberland...

Repko v. Our Lady of Lourdes Medical Center, Inc., ___ N.J. Super. ___ (App. Div. 2020). Judge Accurso’s brief opinion in this case today addressed a “question [that] appears to be one of first impression in New Jersey”: whether a decedent’s estate can apply Rule 4:9-3, the “relation back” rule, to a complaint that was not filed until after the plaintiff in the case had already died. The answer was “no.” Judge Accurso rightly observed that “the timeline is everything in this case,” so here it is. In September 2016, Carolyn Repko...