Supreme Court of New Jersey Decisions 2022
Date: December 13, 2022
Docket Number: A-39-21
Justia Opinion Summary: This action was brought by plaintiff Nancy Holm, administratrix of the estate of her husband, Christopher Friedauer, who died in 2015 after falling at his workplace, Holmdel Nurseries, LLC. As a longtime employee of the…
Date: November 28, 2022
Docket Number: A-33-21
Date: October 26, 2022
Docket Number: A-36-21
Justia Opinion Summary: In 2015, defendant Dezarae Fillmyer, who coached the Hightstown High School girls’ field hockey team, instructed players to warm up in an area adjacent to the school’s turf field, where the boys’ soccer team was…
Date: August 25, 2022
Docket Number: A-25/26/27-21
Justia Opinion Summary: Plaintiffs, the heirs and executor of the estate of Viviana Ruscitto, filed complaints seeking compensatory and punitive damages on numerous counts after Ruscitto’s death from leiomyosarcoma, a rare cancer that cannot be…
Date: August 24, 2022
Docket Number: A-32-21
Justia Opinion Summary: Sometime after 1:00 a.m. on November 2, 2017, New Jersey State Police officers were deployed to arrest Julian Bell on a four-month-old failure to appear warrant. When the officers arrived at Bell’s home, he was standing…
Date: August 18, 2022
Docket Number: A-3-21
Justia Opinion Summary: Defendant A.L.A. was the legal guardian of her four grandchildren, who ranged in age from three to seventeen years old. In August 2016, the oldest grandchild reported that defendant physically abused them. After an…
Date: August 17, 2022
Docket Number: A-54/55-20
Justia Opinion Summary: Consolidated appeals arose from two actions based on real estate development disputes. Plaintiffs sued their former legal counsel, two real estate developers, and executives employed by the developers, alleging that…
Date: August 10, 2022
Docket Number: A-24-21
Justia Opinion Summary: The issue this appeal presented for the New Jersey Supreme Court’s review centered on an exclusionary clause in a commercial general liability insurance policy issued by Admiral Insurance Company (Admiral) to Richfield…
Date: August 3, 2022
Docket Number: A-12-21
Justia Opinion Summary: Petitioner F.E.D., seventy-three years old, was convicted of three counts of first-degree murder and would not be eligible for parole until 2040. In February 2021, the Managing Physician of the New Jersey Department of…
Date: August 2, 2022
Docket Number: A-7-21
Justia Opinion Summary: East Bay Drywall, LLC was a drywall installation business that hired on a per-job basis. Once a builder accepts East Bay’s bid for a particular project, East Bay contacts workers -- whom it alleged to be subcontractors…
Date: July 18, 2022
Docket Number: A-76-20
Justia Opinion Summary: Plaintiff Crystal Point Condominium Association, Inc. obtained default judgments against two entities for construction defect claims. Kinsale Insurance Company was alleged to have insured those entities, under the Direct…
Date: July 6, 2022
Docket Number: A-30-21
Justia Opinion Summary: In November 2017, Michele Yamakaitis, the nominee of the Democratic Party, was re-elected to a three-year term as the councilmember representing the 8th Ward to the City of Linden Municipal Council (City Council). One…
Date: July 5, 2022
Docket Number: A-77-20
Justia Opinion Summary: The issue this case presented for the New Jersey Supreme Court's review centered on whether reasonable and articulable suspicion existed when a police officer conducted an investigatory stop of defendant Nazier Goldsmith…
Date: June 30, 2022
Docket Number: A-5-21
Justia Opinion Summary: In June 2011, Thomasenia Fowler, as administrator of her husband Willis Edenfield’s estate, initiated a wrongful death/product liability action against Union Carbide, a manufacturer and supplier of asbestos that…
Date: June 29, 2022
Docket Numbers: A-67-20, A-37-21
Justia Opinion Summary: On January 3, 2016, police found James Dewyer without a pulse in his silver Dodge on the side of a Mansfield, New Jersey road. That morning, Dewyer had picked up defendant Quinnizel Clark at a motel in Mansfield, and the…
Date: June 28, 2022
Docket Number: A-4-21
Justia Opinion Summary: In November 2018, at approximately 10:20 p.m., Trenton detectives stopped defendant David Smith’s motor vehicle for a purported tinted windows violation after the detectives observed dark tinting on defendant’s rear…
Date: June 27, 2022
Docket Number: A-43-21
Justia Opinion Summary: This appeal posed a narrow question for the New Jersey Supreme Court's review: whether a particular defendant’s statutory right to a speedy trial was violated. Defendant Marcus Mackroy-Davis was arrested on November 11,…
Date: June 23, 2022
Docket Number: A-74-20
Justia Opinion Summary: In 2013, the New Jersey Supreme Court affirmed the Appellate Division’s holding that Koger Distributed Solutions, Inc. (KDS) and Koger Professional Services, Inc. (KPS) had value as independent entities rather than being…
Date: June 22, 2022
Docket Number: A-15-21
Justia Opinion Summary: On the morning of February 24, 2014, defendant Abayuba Rivas went to the Police Department and reported that his wife Karla Villagra Garzon was missing. Over the next several days, Rivas gave statements to the police to…
Date: June 21, 2022
Docket Number: A-60-20
Justia Opinion Summary: Defendant Ashley Bailey and Edwin Ingram married in 2011 and remained married until Ingram’s death in 2016. They had two children. In April 2014, the New Jersey State Police commenced an investigation of an alleged drug…
Date: June 16, 2022
Docket Number: A-17-21
Justia Opinion Summary: In 2020, the Legislature amended N.J.S.A. 2C:44-1 to add a new mitigating factor fourteen: “[t]he defendant was under 26 years of age at the time of the commission of the offense.” N.J.S.A. 2C:44-1(b)(14). It provided…
Date: June 13, 2022
Docket Number: A-16-21
Justia Opinion Summary: Plaintiff Ann Samolyk sustained neurological and cognitive injuries when she entered a lagoon in Forked River to rescue her neighbors’ dog, which had fallen or jumped into the water. Samolyk’s husband filed a civil…
Date: June 9, 2022
Docket Number: A-57-20
Justia Opinion Summary: Defendant Mengxi Liu, the successful bidder in a real estate auction conducted by defendant Max Spann Real Estate and Auction Co. (Max Spann), asserted as a defense to the seller’s breach of contract action that the…
Date: June 8, 2022
Docket Number: A-13/14-21
Justia Opinion Summary: In 2010, a joint task force of local and federal law enforcement began investigating Mykal Derry, the leader of a drug organization, and his brother, Malik, among others. During the course of the investigation, a man was…
Date: June 2, 2022
Docket Number: A-41-20
Justia Opinion Summary: In July 2001, victim C.S. was sexually assaulted by an unknown assailant. The New Jersey State Police Lab (“Lab”) created a profile for the suspect’s DNA sample, Specimen 12A, retrieved from C.S.’s body. In 2002, the Lab…
Date: May 16, 2022
Docket Number: A-75-20
Justia Opinion Summary: A car driven by defendant Rashaun Bell crashed into two teenaged boys riding a bicycle on a roadway in Jersey City. Both boys died as a result of the accident. Defendant and his three passengers fled the scene. Defendant…
Date: May 10, 2022
Docket Number: A-73-20
Justia Opinion Summary: Eighty-five year old Sundiata Acoli had been imprisoned for forty-nine years for his role in the 1973 murder of a New Jersey State Trooper, and the wounding of another. During his time in prison, Acoli had consistently…
Date: May 2, 2022
Docket Number: A-78-20
Justia Opinion Summary: In this appeal, a detective administered Miranda warnings but repeatedly undermined them throughout an interrogation. The New Jersey Supreme Court concluded the detective here repeatedly contradicted and minimized the…
Date: April 28, 2022
Docket Number: A-18/19-21
Justia Opinion Summary: The Bergen County Improvement Authority (BCIA) issued a request for qualification (RFQ) for a redeveloper to act as general contractor in the rehabilitation of the Bergen County Courthouse. Nine companies, including…
Date: April 12, 2022
Docket Number: A-70-20
Justia Opinion Summary: In this appeal, the issue presented for the New Jersey Supreme Court in this case was whether a plaintiff had to submit an affidavit of merit (AOM) in support of a vicarious liability claim against a licensed health care…
Date: April 11, 2022
Docket Number: a-44-21
Date: March 30, 2022
Docket Number: a-59-20
Justia Opinion Summary: Plaintiff Hamid Harris alleged that Donald Stabile, a Newark Police Department detective, falsely accused him of four armed robberies that were committed in Newark in January 2015, and unlawfully arrested him in…
Date: March 17, 2022
Docket Number: A-2-21
Justia Opinion Summary: Plaintiff Aleice Jeter filed a negligence claim against Sam’s Club after sustaining injuries when she slipped on one or more grapes. Plaintiff stated that she fell while walking away from the checkout area, “halfway…
Date: March 17, 2022
Docket Number: a-53-20
Justia Opinion Summary: Defendant Anthony Sims, Jr. challenged his conviction of attempted murder and weapons offenses arising from the April 9, 2014 shooting of P.V. One of the issues this case presented for the New Jersey Supreme Court's…
Date: March 14, 2022
Docket Number: a-58-20
Justia Opinion Summary: In February 2019, an attorney made a complaint to the Union County Prosecutor’s Office on behalf of employees of the Elizabeth Police Department. The complaint alleged that Police Director James Cosgrove, the civilian…
Date: March 8, 2022
Docket Number: a-64-20
Justia Opinion Summary: Plaintiff Kathleen Moynihan and defendant Edward Lynch were involved in a long-term “marital-style relationship.” Anticipating the potential dissolution of that relationship, they signed and notarized a written…
Date: March 7, 2022
Docket Number: a-34-20
Justia Opinion Summary: In October 2017, an incarcerated woman filed a lawsuit against Cumberland County and several corrections officers, including Tyrone Ellis, alleging she had been forced to engage in non-consensual sex acts on a regular…
Date: February 11, 2022
Docket Number: a-71-20
Justia Opinion Summary: Plaintiff Graphnet, Inc. and defendant Retarus, Inc. were considered industry competitors -- they each provided, among other things, cloud-based facsimile services. In 2014, Retarus published a brochure containing…
Date: February 9, 2022
Docket Number: a-61-20
Justia Opinion Summary: In Spring 2015, plaintiffs Thomas and Julie Stewart were injured when they lost control of their motorcycle while riding over a Garden State Parkway overpass. Thomas testified that, after he and his wife passed through…
Date: February 8, 2022
Docket Number: a-47-20
Justia Opinion Summary: In 2017, police questioned defendant Laura Gonzalez -- after providing her with her Miranda warnings -- in connection with the discovery that the infant for whom she served as a nanny had two fractures in his right leg…
Date: February 7, 2022
Docket Number: a-65-20
Justia Opinion Summary: In winter 1996, defendant Samuel Ryan (then aged 23) robbed a Bridgeton, New Jersey gas station at gunpoint, stealing $100 and shooting a store clerk in the process. The offense resulted in defendant’s third first-degree…
Date: February 3, 2022
Docket Number: r-3-21
Justia Opinion Summary: This matter involved a legal challenge to the congressional redistricting map selected by the New Jersey Congressional Redistricting Commission (Commission). On December 22, 2021, a majority of the Commission’s members…
Date: January 25, 2022
Docket Number: a-39-20
Justia Opinion Summary: Around midnight on May 7, 2011, a 7-Eleven was robbed. Approximately three-quarters of a mile from the 7-Eleven, Sergeant Mark Horan saw a car approaching in the oncoming traffic lane. Using the spotlight mounted to his…
Date: January 25, 2022
Docket Number: A-40-20
Justia Opinion Summary: Around midnight on May 7, 2011, a 7-Eleven was robbed. At approximately 12:15 a.m., Sergeant Mark Horan of the Hamilton Township Police Department received a transmission about the armed robbery, which “had just…
Date: January 20, 2022
Docket Number: a-44-20
Justia Opinion Summary: Consolidated appeals presented an issue of first impression for the New Jersey Supreme Court: whether police have a right to conduct a protective sweep of a home when an arrest is made outside the home and, if so, the…
Date: January 20, 2022
Docket Number: A-45-20
Justia Opinion Summary: In June 2011, defendant Christopher Radel pled guilty to a weapons offense. In October 2015, the court entered an order directing the local police department to confiscate any firearms at Radel's residence. Before…
Date: January 20, 2022
Docket Number: A-68/69-20
Justia Opinion Summary: Defendants Township of Sparta, Paul Austin, and Sparta Department of Public Works (collectively, defendants) challenged a denial of workers’ compensation benefits to plaintiff Diane Lapsley under the Workers’…
Date: January 10, 2022
Docket Number: A-42/43-20
Justia Opinion Summary: Defendants James Comer and James Zarate asked the New Jersey Supreme Court to find that a mandatory sentence of at least 30 years without parole was unconstitutional as applied to juveniles. Seventeen year old Comer was…
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