Appellate Division Affirms OPMA Does Not Require BOE to Discuss Proposed Employment Action Prior to Voting
On May 17, 2019, the New Jersey Appellate Division in Centrella v. Prospect Park Board of Education issued an unpublished decision confirming that, under the Open Public Meetings Act (“OPMA”), a public entity is not required to discuss a proposed employment action prior to actually vo...
Contractor Who Missed 90 Day Deadline for Serving A Notice of Tort Claim by Two Days Barred by Court To Pursue Tort Claim Against Municipality
Plaintiff Lakeside Construction (“Lakeside”) was a contractor who was hired to perform various site improvements at a school located in the Township of Sparta. Those site improvements included the installation of an underground pipe to connect the new school building to the municipal...
Important Appellate Division Reported Opinion Regarding Disclosure of Investigatory Materials Under The Work Product Doctrine
The Appellate Division on June 6, 2019 rendered a reported Opinion on the issue of when disclosure of materials prepared or collected prior to the institution of litigation is required. The matter is Paladino v. Auletto Enterprises, Inc. t/a Auletto Caterers, 2019 WL 2375475. On O...
Third Circuit Rules That a Prior Stacking Waiver Will Apply To a Newly Added Insured Vehicle
The United States Court of Appeals for Third Circuit recently upheld a Magistrate Judge’s ruling that held that a waiver of stacking uninsured/underinsured (“UM/UIM”) coverages did apply to a vehicle that was added to an insured’s policy after the insured had already signed a stacking...
Appellate Division Finds Big Apple Maps Did Not Provide City With Legally Adequate Notice Due to Minor Discrepancy Between Plaintiff’s Testimony and Map’s Sidewalk Defect Description
Typically, in New York City, the Big Apple Pothole and Sidewalk Protection Committee (“Big Apple”)’s maps provide legally sufficient notice to the City of dangerous potholes or sidewalk conditions. See https://www.nystla.org/index.cfm?pg=Pothole for more information. Big Apple was est...
Applications for New Alternative Care Centers to be Issued on July 1, 2019
Ready, Set Go! On June 3, 2019, Governor Murphy issued an executive order expanding the Medical Marijuana Program in New Jersey. A total of 108 additional licenses will be issued. The licenses will be divided among the northern, central and southern regions of New Jersey. There wi...
Immunities Available to Public Entities for Personal Injuries Caused by Snow or Ice
Public entities enjoy immunities not available to private individuals or businesses with respect to injuries caused by accidents due to snow or ice. The two main immunities would be the weather immunity found in the Tort Claims Act, N.J.S.A. 59:4-7, and the common law snow removal act...
New Jersey Supreme Court Rules on Significant Unemployment Insurance Eligibility Question
In the course of the employer counseling work that I do in my labor and employment practice, clients ask a lot of questions regarding New Jersey’s Unemployment Compensation Law, especially about the grounds that are available to an employer to challenge employee eligibility for unempl...
School Board Found Not Liable for Injury that Occurred Due to Fall from Slope in Property
Plaintiff Patricia Eak stumbled while walking down a slope at Central Regional High School to watch her son play baseball on the junior varsity field. As a result, she fell and broke her ankle. In Eak v. Central Regional School District, 2019 N.J. Super. Unpub. LEXIS 685 (App. Div. Ma...
New York Court of Appeals Finds that Plaintiffs Moving for Partial Summary Judgment on Liability are not Required to Prove the Absence of their Own Comparative Negligence
Plaintiff Carlos Rodriguez, a garage utility worker for the New York City Department of Sanitation, was standing between a parked car and a rack of tires when a sanitation truck, which was trying to back into a garage, crashed into the front of the parked car, propelling it into plain...
A Grocery Store is Not Liable for a Transitory Spill
A court dismissed a plaintiff’s Complaint filed against ShopRite for a fall due to debris in the main walkway of ShopRite’s parking lot in Monroe County, Pennsylvania. Karten v. ShopRite, Inc., No. 4416 CV 2016, (C.P. Dec. 3, 2018). ShopRite’s summary judgment was granted and the case...
Appellate Division Revisits Contract and Insurance Policy Interpretation
The Appellate Division on January 22, 2019 decided an interesting case regarding insurance coverage which has been approved for publication. The matter is Katchen v. GEICO et al., No. A-5685-16T4, 2019 WL 272926 (App. Div. Jan. 22, 2019). In December 2015, Plaintiff Katchen was inj...
New Jersey Workers' Compensation Manual
John H. Geaney, Esq. publishes a yearly manual aimed on providing practitioners, adjusters and employers with key information on Workers’ Compensation in the State of New Jersey.