Financial Services Vehicle Trust v. Panter, ___ N.J. Super. ___ (App. Div. 2019).  This appeal actually involved four consolidated cases, all of them originating in the Small Claims Part of the Superior Court.  In each case, the plaintiff had been in an auto accident.  Each plaintiff sought compensation not only for the physical damage to his or her vehicle, but also for the alleged devaluation of the vehicle to the “stigma of having been in an accident,” even though the vehicles had been repaired to their pre-accident condition.  Defendants contended that such “stigma...

...

State v. Berisha, 458 N.J. Super. 105 (App. Div. 2019).  None of us likes to admit our mistakes.  That includes judges, of course, though judges sometimes do change their minds, as discussed here. Yesterday, Judge Fisher issued a panel opinion in this post-conviction relief appeal involving a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel.  He unabashedly confessed error by a prior panel, on which he sat (with two other, now-retired judges), on defendant’s direct appeal. In the very first paragraph of his opinion, Judge Fisher noted that the prior opinion had been “clouded by our...