Chief Justice Rabner has issued the General Assignment Order for the coming Term. It is available here. At the Appellate Division level, the headline is that the number of Parts has been reduced from eight to seven, encompassing a total of thirty judges. Two of the Parts, Parts C and E, have five judges, while the other Parts have four judges, as in the past. Unlike in several past years, there is no provision for any “Temporary Assignees” on any Part. That is despite the fact that the thirty-judge composition of the Appellate Division for 2021-22 is smaller than the...

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...

State v. Smith, ___ N.J. Super. ___ (App. Div. 2020). Perhaps fittingly, the final published Appellate Division of 2020, written by Judge Fasciale and issued today, centered on the COVID-19 pandemic. This case involved a trial of murder and other charges against two defendants. That trial began on February 12, 2020. By March 15, when the Supreme Court suspended all jury trials, the State was still presenting its case, having offered 29 witnesses, with three or four more witnesses still to come. After the Supreme Court authorized the resumption of suspended jury trials “consistent with...