Published Appellate Court Opinions

In this appeal, this court was asked to determine whether a patient who requires emergent psychiatric treatment, resulting in his involuntary commitment to a hospital, should be treated differently for charity care purposes than a patient who suffers a physical injury or illness. This issue of first impression arose from a dispute regarding a hospital's attempt to recover payment from an indigent mental health patient, who was involuntarily committed to its facility after being screened by a psychiatric emergency screening service, when the hospital followed the charity care procedures applicable to a non-emergent admission instead of those applicable to an admission through the hospital's emergency room. The trial court determined on summary judgment that the procedures governing a regular admission applied, and the hospital was entitled to recover from the patient based on a theory of quasi-contract.

This court reversed, holding that when a mental health patient is admitted to a hospital on an emergent basis through the referral of a psychiatric emergency screening service, the provisions of the charity care regulations dealing with emergency room admissions applied.

This appeal requires this court to determine whether certain data the Department of Corrections (DOC) is required to maintain by federal and State regulations is no longer subject to disclosure as a "government record" under the Open Public Records Act (OPRA). Specifically, whether data previously provided to the public in monthly reports is no longer available because the DOC implemented a new data collection system that does not generate these reports. The Government Records Council (GRC) upheld the DOC's denial of these records because they are no longer available in this format. This court reverses the GRC and holds that technological advancements in data storage should enhance, not diminish, the public's right to access "government records" under OPRA. Acceptance of the DOC's argument would leave the public policy of transparency and openness codified in OPRA unacceptably vulnerable to bureaucratic manipulation.

In reversing the summary judgment entered in favor of defendants on both plaintiffs' breach of contract and consumer fraud claims, the court held, among other things, that the sale of a tow truck constituted a "sale of merchandise," as defined by N.J.S.A. 56:8-2, even though it was custom built.

Plaintiff fell at a concert at a university's multipurpose center. The Appellate Division agreed the university had charitable immunity. Holding concerts open to the public to advance education was one of the university's purposes. The concert served that purpose regardless of the music's genre. The university remained immune though the performer, and the entities which selected and booked her and rented the center, were for-profit. Even a charity can rent its facilities to for-profit entities unless non-charitable activities become its dominant motive, which was not shown here. As an audience member, plaintiff was a beneficiary regardless of whether she viewed the concert as educational.

Judge Fisher dissents.

Plaintiff failed to prove defendant committed an act of domestic violence but the judge – after acknowledging the Prevention of Domestic Violence Act did not permit issuance of a final restraining order – relied on P.J.G. v. P.S.S., 297 N.J. Super. 468 (App. Div. 1997), invoked her "inherent equitable powers," and entered restraints in plaintiff's favor. The court reversed, holding that even if it represents good law, P.J.G. requires that some other vehicle – such as another pending action between the parties – must be available for the issuance of restraints based on the trial court's inherent equitable powers. There being no action between the parties except the domestic violence action in question, the trial court was not authorized to impose restraints or do anything but dismiss plaintiff's domestic violence action without granting affirmative relief.

The court reverses an order granting the judgment creditor's motion to turn over the funds in a joint marital account without a determination of whether the funds belonged to the debtor husband alone. The court notes that the wife was not a judgment debtor, did not sign the agreement with the creditor to make payments to avoid the levy, and claimed the funds were exempt pension funds.

Plaintiff appealed the dismissal of his complaint under N.J.S.A. 52:4C-1, the Mistaken Imprisonment Act. Plaintiff was convicted in 1988 of possession of cocaine and weapons. He served five and one half years and was released from prison in 1996. In April 1999, the New Jersey Office of the Attorney General issued a report acknowledging the State Police's use of racial profiling on the Turnpike from 1988 to 1999 and in 2000, agreed to vacate convictions and dismiss charges for certain cases.

In November 2011, plaintiff was convicted in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania for another narcotics offense and sentenced to thirty years. The federal court used plaintiff's New Jersey convictions to enhance his federal sentence because he qualified as a three-strike "career offender".

On May 2, 2014, the New Jersey court consented to order vacating defendant's 1988 New Jersey conviction because it was subject to inclusion in the aforementioned State Police racial profiling consent order. In light of the vacated conviction, the federal court resentenced plaintiff to a shorter term as he no longer qualified as a "career offender." Plaintiff filed suit under the Act on April 27, 2016.

The trial judge dismissed plaintiff's complaint. The panel affirmed the dismissal of plaintiff's complaint because the plain language of N.J.S.A. 52:4C-4 identifies two triggering events from which to calculate the two-year statute of limitations: release from imprisonment or a pardon. Because plaintiff's complaint was filed beyond the two years after his release from prison in New Jersey and the vacatur of his conviction was not a pardon, his complaint was not timely filed.

In this premises liability case, we reverse a Law Division order granting a directed verdict to defendants, a condominium association and its property manager, and dismissing with prejudice the negligence claim of plaintiff, a condominium resident. We hold that the association had a statutory duty to maintain the common areas, including a duty to identify and correct dangerous conditions, and that duty extended to residents of the condominium building, regardless of their characterization as licensees or invitees. While the condominium association has a statutory right to adopt a by-law precluding residents from suing the association for negligence, the association did not adopt such a by-law. Because plaintiff's evidence, if credited by the jury, established a prima facie case of negligence, we reverse and remand for a new trial.

In this PCR appeal, defendant collaterally challenged his conviction, after a guilty plea, to aggravated manslaughter. The panel concludes that defendant, in the course of his allocution, suggested a defense of others that was inconsistent with guilt; his waiver of that defense was not knowingly made; therefore, he did not present a sufficient factual basis of guilt. In reaching this conclusion, the panel applies the principles set forth in State v. Urbina, 221 N.J. 509 (2015), although that case involved a claim of self-defense, rather than the defense of others, suggested in the course of a guilty plea. In view of defendant's contemporaneous claim of innocence, the panel held that the failure to elicit a sufficient factual basis was of constitutional dimension and warrants PCR.

Defendant appealed from an order terminating litigation after a fact-finding hearing wherein a Family Part judge determined she had abused or neglected her son by exposing him to domestic violence and suggesting she wanted to commit suicide. The panel reversed because the trial judge impermissibly admitted and relied on insufficiently corroborated statements of the child, as well as facts and complex diagnoses within a hearsay report of a psychologist consultant of the Division of Child Protection and Permanency. In particular, the panel noted the corroboration necessary to rely on the hearsay statements of the child, N.J.S.A. 9:6-8.46(a)(4) must be direct or circumstantial and corroboration should not be conflated with reliability. The panel also reiterated when an expert is not produced as a witness, N.J.R.E. 808 requires exclusion of the expert's complex disputed opinion, even if the opinion is contained in a business record, unless the trial judge makes specific findings regarding trustworthiness.

Appellant was a volunteer firefighter when she was injured responding to a fire. She was unemployed at the time of the injury and received no wages. Following a hearing, a Workers' Compensation judge denied appellant's application for temporary total disability benefits. The panel agreed that payment of temporary disability benefits depended upon proof of lost wages. Temporary disability is intended to replace lost wages. Without proof of lost wages, appellant had no entitlement to temporary disability benefits under the Workers' Compensation Act.

After a streetlight fell on the corner of plaintiff's property, an employee of the defendant electric company disconnected the power, removed the light pole, pushed the wires into a hole in the ground, and covered the hole with dirt. He placed over the hole an orange safety cone, which disappeared within a few days. White markings painted by the hole faded in the ensuing weeks.

Nearly two months later, plaintiff inadvertently stepped into the hole and injured herself, resulting in lumbar and knee surgeries. She brought a negligence case against the utility for creating and failing to timely repair a dangerous condition. A jury found the utility primarily at fault in causing the accident. It awarded plaintiff damages, which were reduced by her own percentage of fault. The utility appeals and asserts multiple trial errors.

Plaintiff, a tax sale certificate holder, appealed an order which permitted a party to intervene in this foreclosure action and redeem based on its having obtained title pursuant to its profit-sharing agreement with the property owners. The intervenor agreed to pay the owners $10,000 for clear title and, by way of the profit-sharing agreement, promised to: pay all outstanding property taxes; satisfy a $70,000 judgment against one of the owners; allow the owners free use and occupancy until the property's eventual sale; and consented to a thirty-five/sixty-five split of the net proceeds, with the owners receiving the larger share. Plaintiff argued the consideration received by the owners was illusory or was only nominal because the profit-sharing agreement called for reimbursement to the intervenor of its payment of the taxes, of the $70,000 judgment, and of all repairs made to the premises. In affirming, the court held that the owners received more than nominal consideration – thereby satisfying N.J.S.A. 54:5-89.1's requirements – and rejected plaintiff's contention that Simon v. Cronecker, 189 N.J. 304 (2007) imposed a blanket prohibition on all profit-sharing agreements in this setting.

In these two appeals from orders of detention pursuant to the Criminal Justice Reform Act, N.J.S.A. 2A:162-15 to -26 (the CJRA), the Law Division revoked defendants' pretrial release for violations of conditions.

In White, although defendant received notice that the hearing on the State's motion to revoke would occur on a different date, the judge refused to grant a short extension of the hearing when defendant appeared in court so defendant could call a witness and produce other evidence. The panel concluded the judge mistakenly exercised his discretion and reversal was required because the denial of the adjournment was prejudicial to defendant's ability to rebut the State's proffered evidence of a violation.

In Bostic, defendant was immediately arrested when he reported for the first time to Pretrial Services. The State alleged defendant violated conditions of his release, specifically leaving his home and entering a "victim exclusion zone" for one minute. The Law Division judge revoked defendant's release.

The panel reversed, concluding there was no authority for defendant's immediate arrest, because he committed no new offense and the court had issued no warrant for his arrest based upon alleged violations of conditions. The panel also concluded the State failed to prove by preponderance of the evidence that defendant knew the parameters of the victim "exclusion zones," or that his failure to remain in his home, when specifically ordered to report to Pretrial Services, was a violation of his conditions of release.

Appellant, an inmate at the New Jersey State Prison, challenged the final decision of the Department of Corrections (DOC), which reiterated DOC's informal policy (the calling policy) prohibiting inmates from making phone calls to cell phones and "non-traditional telephone service numbers." He asserted the calling policy violated the United States Constitution and DOC's informal implementation of the calling violated the Administrative Procedures Act, N.J.S.A. 52:14B-1 to -31 (the APA).

The court concluded DOC's adoption and implementation of the calling policy violated the rulemaking procedures required by the APA. The court recognized the likely disruption that immediate invalidation of the policy would cause, and left the policy in place, pending DOC's commencement of rulemaking without delay.

Defendant appeals from his convictions and sentence asserting several arguments, which challenge evidentiary determinations by the trial judge. Specifically, defendant characterizes the errors as: (1) the exclusion of defense expert testimony evaluating the reliability of voice identification evidence and discussing factors affecting the reliability of what was termed "earwitness" identification; (2) the admission of what he characterizes as the State's prejudicial, irrelevant gang expert evidence; and (3) the admission of the State's misleading expert testimony pertaining to the chemicals Toluene and D5 found at the scene.

The court affirmed the evidentiary rulings, noting the judge fully determined the limits of admissibility of all evidence. When deeming certain subjects inadmissible, the trial judge's detailed findings including: the expert was found not to be qualified to address the area; the testimony risked misleading the jury; the concepts related to matters of common sense; and the opinion tended to tread on the jury's credibility determinations.

Judge Higbee dissents rejecting the limitations placed on the proffered evidence.

In this case, we reverse defendant's conviction for operating a motor vehicle while his license was suspended for a second or subsequent driving while intoxicated (DWI) conviction, N.J.S.A. 2C:40-26(b). While defendant's license was suspended for a second DWI conviction when the police stopped him, before trial he successfully petitioned for post-conviction relief (PCR). The order granting PCR vacated his prior DWI convictions and remanded both matters to the municipal court for new trials. On remand, the municipal court dismissed one DWI charge, and defendant pled guilty to the other.

As a result of defendant's PCR and remand proceedings, at the time of his trial for violating N.J.S.A. 2C:40-26(b), he had only one prior DWI conviction. Accordingly, the State could not prove an element of the crime charged — a second DWI conviction — a prerequisite to the mandatory 180-day incarceration period imposed by N.J.S.A. 2C:40-26(b) and (c).

The State appeals a special probation Drug Court sentence imposed under N.J.S.A. 2C:35-14 following defendant's conviction for second-degree leaving the scene of a fatal accident, N.J.S.A. 2C:11-5.1, third-degree causing death while driving with a suspended or revoked license, N.J.S.A. 2C:40-22(a); and third-degree endangering an injured victim, N.J.S.A. 2C:12-1.2(a). The State contends the court erred in its assessment of the factors required for imposition of a special probation sentence under N.J.S.A. 2C:35-14.

The court concludes it is without jurisdiction to hear the appeal, finding the State lacked authority to appeal because the sentence is not illegal and N.J.S.A. 2C:35-14 does not authorize the State to appeal a special probation sentence. The court rejects the contention that N.J.S.A. 2C:44-1(f)(2) authorizes the State's appeal because defendant received a probationary sentence for a second-degree crime that is otherwise subject to a presumption of imprisonment under N.J.S.A. 2C:44-1(d). The court determines that the State's appeal authorized by N.J.S.A. 2C:44-1(f)(2) is limited to challenges to sentencing determinations under N.J.S.A. 2C:44-1(d), and does not apply to sentencing decisions made under N.J.S.A. 2C:35-14.