The “D” in DWI may not mean what you think it means.

The “D” in DWI may not mean what you think it means.

March 10, 2020

The Appellate Division recently invoked the great Inigo Montoya in a decision on New Jersey’s law against “operating a vehicle while under the influence.” (For those who don’t know Inigo Montoya from The …
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Court Approves Service Of Complaint Through Facebook

March 5, 2020

In what has become more and more common in recent years, a New Jersey court recently had to decide whether to allow a plaintiff to serve a defendant over Facebook rather than in…
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Before Applying A 30-Year-Old Decision To Modern Technology, A New Jersey Court References A Musical From The 1890’s

January 28, 2020

In Pathri v. Kakarlamath, the issue before the court was whether a witness could testify via contemporaneous video transmission in a divorce trial. The trial court denied the witness’s request to do…
Continue Reading Before Applying A 30-Year-Old Decision To Modern Technology, A New Jersey Court References A Musical From The 1890’s

Tenant Responsible For Visitor’s Slip-And-Fall On Commercial Property

January 23, 2020

The New Jersey Supreme Court’s recent decision in Shields v. Ramslee Motors, is the latest in a seemingly endless series of cases dealing with the duties of landlords and tenants to keep…
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New Jersey Court: Length of Opinion Not Indicative of Time or Effort Put Into Decision

January 13, 2020

Procedural issues are usually pretty boring, but the issue in N.J. Div. of Child Prot. & Permanency v. A.L. is different. OK. It might still be boring to most, but it is interesting…
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Arbitration Award Vacated Because Arbitrator Hid Ownership Interest In Arbitration Service

January 7, 2020

Arbitration awards are rarely overturned. The standard to vacate an award is high, and judicial review of awards is often unexacting. So when a court overturns an award, it is usually worth a…
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On Amateur Chihuahua Breeding And Bailments

December 18, 2019

After reading the opening paragraph of the Appellate Division’s decision in Rivera v. Canseo, I was hooked. Here it is:

[Plaintiff] owns a female chihuahua. Defendant . . . owns a male…
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Legal Writing Tip: Don’t start your brief by calling the trial judge “attractive, hard-working, brilliant, young, [and] politically well-connected.”

December 2, 2019

This should probably be obvious, but apparently it wasn’t, at least to one California lawyer. So, in a published opinion, Briganti v. Chow, the California Court of Appeals included a “Note on…
Continue Reading Legal Writing Tip: Don’t start your brief by calling the trial judge “attractive, hard-working, brilliant, young, [and] politically well-connected.”

Attention Landlords: Another Quirk In New Jersey Landlord-Tenant Law That You Are Not Going To Like

November 26, 2019

For the uninitiated landlord, New Jersey landlord-tenant court can be a bit of a shock. The deck seems insurmountably stacked in the tenant’s favor. And when a landlord acquires its property via foreclosure,…
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Plaintiff’s Slip And Fall Lawsuit Against Church Barred By Statute . . . And The Bible

October 25, 2019