The “Tender Years” Hearsay Exception
State of New Jersey in the Interest of A.R., 447 N.J. Super. 485 (App. Div. 2016). Judge Sabatino teaches at Rutgers-Camden Law School. Students there pay to be educated by him. Readers of his...
View ArticleThe Appellate Division Rejects a Stipulated Dismissal of an Appeal From a...
J.S. v. D.S., 448 N.J. Super. 17 (App. Div. 2016). Normally, when parties agree to dismiss an appeal, the courts are only to happy to oblige. This opinion by Judge Fisher yesterday in a domestic...
View ArticleGrandparent Visitation Redux
Slawinski v. Nicholas, 448 N.J. Super. 25 (App. Div. 2016). There are a surprising number of published New Jersey cases in the family context regarding grandparent visitation of grandchildren....
View ArticleEquitable Distribution Statute Does Not Apply to Property Acquired During...
Thieme v. Aucoin-Thieme, 227 N.J. 269 (2016). Plaintiff and defendant cohabited for eight years, were married for a short time, and then divorced. Before and during the marriage, plaintiff had been a...
View ArticleMandatory Electronic Filing of Pretrial Detention Appeals Begins on January...
This morning, the Appellate Division issued a Notice to the Bar, available here, to remind practitioners and appellants that, effective on January 1, 2017, appeals to the Appellate Division on pretrial...
View ArticleAnother Child Abuse and Neglect Case, and a Criminal Case With Constitutional...
The Supreme Court announced today that it has granted review in two new cases. The first, New Jersey Division of Child Protection & Permanency v. A.B., is before the Court by virtue of a dissent...
View ArticleWhether a Child is Emancipated Requires Full Legal Analysis, and Findings and...
Ricci v. Ricci, 448 N.J. Super. 546 (App. Div. 2017). As Judge Lihotz observed in the opening sentence of her opinion for the Appellate Division in this case, Newburgh v. Arrigo, 88 N.J. 529 (1982),...
View ArticleA Guardian of a Child Who Did Not Intervene to Stop Severe Corporal...
New Jerseey Division of Child Permanency & Protection v. J.L.G., ___ N.J. Super. ___ (App. Div. 2015), aff’d o.b., ___ N.J. ___ (2017). This abuse and neglect case resulted in a 2-1 split in the...
View ArticleMaking Up for Lost Time
Several days out of the office last week, and work on a large appellate brief, have left me well behind our appellate courts, who have produced a number of decisions in that interim. To try to catch...
View ArticleThe Supreme Court Abandons Baures v. Lewis in Family Law Child Relocation Cases
Bisbing v. Bisbing, ___ N.J. ___ (2017). Justice Patterson began her opinion in this case, for a unanimous Court, as follows. “This appeal arises from a trial court’s post-judgment determination...
View Article“Equitable Powers” Do Not Justify Entry of a Domestic Violence Restraining...
M.C. v. G.T., ___ N.J. Super. ___ (App. Div. 2018). Judge Fisher used no more words than necessary in his five-page opinion on this appeal. Plaintiff filed a complaint against defendant under the...
View ArticleThe Last Few Weeks, Part 1
Due to an unusual amount of business travel (alas, only to three cold-weather locations) and a hefty appellate brief, I have not been able to keep up with the courts in recent weeks. Here is a...
View ArticleSome Tips on the Appellate Rules from Judge Messano
State of New Jersey in the Interest of N.P., ___ N.J. Super. ___ (App. Div. 2018). This decision by Judge Messano addresses four appeals involving seven different juveniles. The broad issue presented...
View ArticleThe Latest Grants of Supreme Court Review: Life Insurance (Another Certified...
The Supreme Court announced four more cases that will come before it. The subject matters, and the paths that the cases took to reach the Court, are quite varied. Sun Life Assurance Co. of Canada v....
View ArticleA Lesson From Judge Geiger About Clarity in Attorney Time Entries
Giarusso v. Giarusso, ___ N.J. Super. ___ (App. Div. 2018). This opinion by Judge Geiger today involved an application for attorneys’ fees in a matrimonial matter by a well-known North Jersey firm....
View ArticleSupplementary Statement of Reasons by a Trial Level Judge, Redux
Abdelkader v. Hosny, 2018 WL 3579897 (App. Div. July 26, 2018). In State in Interest of N.P., 453 N.J. Super. 480 (App. Div. 2018), discussed here, Judge Messano discussed the purpose of Rule...
View ArticleNegotiated Property Settlement Agreement in Matrimonial Case Defeats Changed...
Bermeo v. Bermeo, ___ N.J. Super. ___ (App. Div. 2018). Today is the second consecutive day on which Judge Firko released a published opinion. The essence of it is that when parties to a divorce...
View ArticleEquitable Distribution of Restricted Stock in a Divorce
M.G. v. S.M., ___ N.J. Super. ___ (App. Div. 2018). As Judge Mawla stated in his opinion in this case today, “[i]ncreasingly, executive compensation has been achieved through means other than salary...
View ArticleJudge Koblitz Instructs About How to Conduct Non-Dissolution, “FD,” Child...
J.G. v. J.H., ___ N.J. Super. ___ (App. Div. 2019). Though many cases involving child custody arise out of divorce proceedings, other such cases occur in other settings. In the Appellate Division’s...
View ArticleWhen New Issues Arise on Appeal, Appellate Division Should Conduct Oral...
State in the Interest of D.M., ___ N.J. ___ (2019). In this juvenile delinquency case, neither the State nor defendant sought oral argument in the Appellate Division. The State, the respondent in that...
View Article
