Plaintiff M.M., a minor by his parents, Woodelyne Nathan Milbin and Ralph Milbin, appealed from an order confirming an arbitration award, entering a $25,000 judgment in plaintiff’s favor. Plaintiff had attempted to reject the award and request a trial de novo but failed to timely file the request for a trial de novo. The issue in M.M. v. Dr. Lena Edwards Academic Charter School, 2023 N.J. Super. Unpub. LEXIS 261 (App. Div. Feb. 24, 2023) was whether the plaintiff had demonstrated the extraordinary circumstances necessary to permit his untimely request for a trial de novo.
This case involved a claim that the minor plaintiff, while enrolled at the defendant’s school was assaulted on several occasions by his classmates and both verbally abused and physically assaulted by his English teacher. Plaintiff sued the Principal, the Assistant Principal, the teacher, and the school. Thereafter, plaintiff filed an Amended Complaint, seeking damages for pain and suffering on various basis including negligence theories and violations of the Anti-Bullying and Law Against Discrimination statutes. The Complaint also included a battery claim against the teacher.
A mandatory non-binding arbitration was held on April 21, 2021. On that date, the arbitrator issued an award, assessing 100% liability as to the school and awarding plaintiff $25,000. The arbitrator did not assess any liability as to the individual defendants and found that plaintiff’s injuries did not meet the tort claim threshold, pursuant to N.J.S.A. 59:9-2.
Thereafter, on June 7, 2021, defendants moved to confirm the arbitration award and enter a judgment. On June 15, 2021, plaintiff moved on a pro se basis for a trial de novo. In support of that motion, the plaintiff attached a letter to the court, “contending the family had quickly rejected the arbitrator’s award, but counsel failed to file a timely motion for a trial de novo.” Further, the plaintiff alleged as a reason for the failure to timely file the request to reject the award was as follows: “since counsel used to always give us excuses based on his health and that of members of his family, we thought that perhaps this may have caused the requisite exigent circumstances that interfered with him filing this trial de novo timely. Or he has just been negligent!”
The trial court considered the plaintiff’s motion as opposition to defendants’ motion. The court noted that the plaintiff’s motion was filed beyond the 30 day deadline prescribed by the court rules to reject the award and file for a trial de novo. The judge further found that plaintiff failed to demonstrate extraordinary circumstances to extend the deadline.
In its rationale, the trial court noted that there have been numerous cases which have held that an attorney’s heavy work load or improper supervision of staff did not constitute extraordinary circumstances. Further, failure to supervise staff has been found insufficient to constitute extraordinary circumstances. The trial court found that there was no dispute but that the request for a trial de novo was filed untimely and found that, under the prior precedents, plaintiff’s situation did not rise to the level of extraordinary circumstances. The court noted that the plaintiff may have a valid claim for malpractice arising out of this issue but that issue was not before the court. Hence, the trial court affirmed the defendants’ motion to confirm the award.
Thereafter, plaintiff’s attorney moved to withdraw as counsel. Plaintiff retained new counsel who then pursued this appeal. In this appeal, plaintiff urged the Appellate Division to reverse the trial court’s order in the “interest of justice.”
The Appellate Division noted that the timing for challenges to an arbitration award is mandated by both statute and our court rules. Pursuant to the court rules, an order shall be entered dismissing the action following the filing of the arbitrator’s award unless one of two events occurs: either within 30 days after the filing of the award, a party files and serves on all other parties a notice of the rejection of the award and demand for a trial de novo or within 50 days after the filing of the arbitration award, any party moves for confirmation of the arbitration award and entry of judgment thereon. (Additionally, the parties may file a notice of settlement within 50 days).
The Appellate Division noted that the rationale for this rule is to provide a short deadline for filing a trial de novo demand “to insure that the Court will promptly schedule trials in cases that cannot be resolved by arbitration.” Further, the Court noted that the Court’s power to extend the time frame “must be sparingly exercised” to the end that the arbitration proceedings achieve finality.
The Court did note that courts do have the power to enlarge the 30 day period to file a demand for a trial de novo but such power should be exercised only “in extraordinary circumstances.” The parties seeking to enlarge the time would need to show that the circumstances for missing the filing deadline was exceptional and compelling and must not arise from mere carelessness or lack of due diligence.
The plaintiff’s stated reason for the failure to timely file a trial de novo in this case was speculation that their attorney’s health issues were the cause of the action. The Appellate Division found that the plaintiff’s “bald assertions fell far short of establishing extraordinary circumstances.” Hence, the Appellate Division found no reason to disturb the trial court’s order and affirmed the order entering judgment of $25,000, as awarded at the arbitration hearing.
