L.R. v. Camden City Public School Dist., 238 N.J. 547 (2019). A relative rarity for our Supreme Court occurred in this case today: the decision of the Appellate Division was affirmed by an equally divided Court. Only six Justices sat because Justice Fernandez-Vina did not participate.
As discussed here, the question presented in this appeal was “Are plaintiffs—the mother of a student with a disability and a nonprofit advocacy organization—entitled to obtain from several school districts redacted copies of settlement agreements and records reflecting the provision of special services to other qualified students?” The Appellate Division, in an opinion reported at 452 N.J. Super. 56 (App. Div. 2017), ruled that plaintiffs were entitled to the documents, on certain conditions.
Today’s 3-3 split at the Supreme Court focused on whether the definition of “student record” in N.J.A.C. 6A:32-2.1 encompassed a redacted record that cannot be linked to a particular student. A concurring opinion by Justice Patterson, joined by Justices LaVecchia and Solomon, concluded that such a record fell within the regulatory definition. That was contrary to the conclusion that the New Jersey Department of Education had reached on the issue. The concurrence then discussed a multi-factor test under which a court order for the records could be obtained under N.J.A.C. 6A;32-7.5(e)(15).
Three dissenters– Justice Albin, who wrote the dissent, and Chief Justice Rabner and Justice Timpone, who joined it– agreed with the Department of Education and would have carved out records of the type at issue here from the regulatory definition of “student record.” But the dissenters agreed with the concurrence on the multi-part test for getting a court order.
An affirmance by an equally divided Court leaves standing the ruling of the court below and has no precedential value. Neil v. Biggers, 409 U.S. 188, 192 (1972). It thus affects only the parties to the particular case at issue.
A Westlaw search reveals that there have been only a handful of such cases in our Supreme Court since the advent of the current Constitution. The earliest of those was in Vanagas v. Vanagas, 1 N.J. 335 (1949). Neither group of Justices wrote an opinion in that case. There was merely a one-line per curiam statement that “[t]he decree herein is affirmed by an equally divided court.” It appears that the first case in which Justices wrote separate opinions explaining their respective positions was Neylon v. Ford Motor Co., 10 N.J. 325 (1952). The three separate opinions there did not, however, account for all the Justices.
In Trap Rock Industries, Inc. v. Sagner, 69 N.J. 599 (1976), three members of the Court voted to affirm for the reasons given by the Appellate Division. Three dissenters, in an opinion by Justice Mountain, gave their rationale for their contrary conclusion. It appears that the first 3-3 case in which all six members of the Court joined a formal opinion on one side or the other, as occurred in today’s case, was State v. Crumedy, 76 N.J. 319 (1978). That has been the general pattern ever since.