Chief Justice Rabner has issued the General Assignment Order for 2018-19.  It is available here.  The Appellate Division lineup again features Judge Messano as Presiding Judge for Administration and Judge Sabatino as Deputy Presiding Judge for Administration.  Those two judges, as well as Judges Simonelli, Koblitz, Alvarez, Fisher, Yannotti, and Fuentes, will serve as Presiding Judges for the eight Parts of the Appellate Division.  Judge Reisner, who had been a Presiding Judge of a Part previously, is now shown as a member of Judge Alvarez’s Part D. The three judges newly appointed to...

Brunt v. Board of Trustees, Police & Firemen’s Retirement System, 455 N.J. Super. 357 (App. Div. 2018).  In general, except as specified by statute, court rule, or a contract between parties, New Jersey follows the “American Rule,” under which litigants must bear their own fees and costs.  This decision today by Judge Rose, in a case that was argued before her and Judge Ostrer, and then re-argued before those two judges and Judge Sabatino, is the latest reiteration of that principle. Plaintiff was serving as interim deputy chief of the Middletown Township Police...

According to the solar calendar, summer formally begins on June 21.  But the Appellate Division begins its summer schedule on June 18, as reflected in the summer Part schedule published here.  The summer is divided into six two-week “Sessions.”  Sessions 1 and 2, which begin on June 18 and July 1, respectively, will feature three two-judge Parts each, while each of the remaining sessions, the last of which ends on September 9, will see two Parts each. There is only one three-judge Part, which is Part Q, Session 4, composed of Judges Sabatino, Mayer, and Mawla.  But “[a]...