In addition to the Supreme Court’s grant of review in a case involving the termination of a contract of sale of residential real estate, discussed here, the Court announced in the last several days that it would review four other cases.  All of those cases arise from unpublished decisions in the Appellate Division. In Grande v. St. Claire’s Health System. an employment discrimination case, the Appellate Division split 2-1, with Judges Fuentes and Kennedy forming the majority.  Their per curiam decision reversed a summary judgment for the defendant.  Judge Ashrafi, dissenting,...

My three-week trial ended late last week, with a successful jury verdict.  But June was a very busy month in the world of New Jersey appellate practice, with numerous important decisions by the federal and state appellate courts.  Some of the more significant cases were: Burgos v. State of New Jersey, 222 N.J. 175 (2015) (5-2 decision by Justice LaVecchia that reversed a ruling of the Law Division that found that the State’s failure to fully fund the public pension program as required by 2011 legislation violated the Contracts Clause); Kotsovska v. Liebman, 221 N.J. 568 (2015) (opinion...

Delray Holding, LLC v. Sofia Design & Development, 439 N.J. Super. 502 (App. Div. 2015).  Two real estate development entities (“the Sofia Entities”) went into bankruptcy and, during bankruptcy proceedings, settled claims that they had against two other real estate development entities and their owner (“the Passarella Entities”), who were the respondents on this appeal.  The appellants were a group of investors (a family trust and a numbeer of individuals) in the Sofia Entities.  Appellants claimed that the Passarella Entities had interfered with...