The Supreme Court Takes Two New Criminal Appeals and Agrees to Answer a Certified Question From the Third Circuit

The Supreme Court announced that it has granted review in three new cases. Two are criminal appeals and the third involves two questions certified by the Third Circuit. The Supreme Court declined one question but agreed to answer the other.

The certified question case is Walfish v. Northwestern Mut. Life Ins. Co. The question posed by the Third Circuit that the Supreme Court agreed to answer is “Does the statutory exception to the New Jersey Unemployment Compensation Act’s definition of ’employment’ for ‘[s]ervice performed . . . by agents of insurance companies . . . wholly on a commission basis,’ N.J. Stat. Ann. § 43:21–19(i)(7)(J), apply to determinations of whether workers are employees or independent contractors under New Jersey’s Wage Payment Law?” That was the second of two questions that the Third Circuit sought to have answered. The first question, which the Supreme Court declined to address, was “Whether insurance agents are employees or independent contractors under New Jersey’s Wage Payment Law as determined by application of the ABC test.”

In the two criminal cases, the Supreme Court granted certification on the same question presented. As phrased by the Supreme Court Clerk’s office, that question is “Did the officer have a reasonable articulable suspicion to stop the car in which defendant was a passenger?”

In State v. Nyema, a three-judge panel of the Appellate Division, in an opinion reported at 465 N.J. Super. 181 (App. Div. 2020), reversed a Law Division ruling and held that a reasonable articulable suspicion was lacking. The panel reversed defendant’s conviction for first-degree robbery and remanded for further proceedings. In the other case, State v. Myers, a felony murder and robbery case, an unpublished opinion by a panel of two judges, one of whom was also on the panel in Nyema, affirmed a trial level ruling that reasonable articulable suspicion was present. The decision upheld defendant’s convictions, which were entered after he offered a conditional guilty plea.