Results

Our defense team successfully obtained dismissal of a New Jersey Law Against Discrimination (NJLAD) perceived disability claim, alleging COVID-19 to be a disability under this statute. This employment discrimination claim involved a matter of first impression in New Jersey. A former employee filed suit asserting perceived disability discrimination under the NJLAD. The plaintiff alleged he was wrongfully terminated based upon his employer’s perception that he had COVID-19. We filed a motion to dismiss in lieu of an answer, asserting the complaint did not set forth a cause of action as COVID-19 is not a recognized disability under the NJLAD. The court granted our motion and agreed that COVID-19 is not a disability under the NJLAD and, therefore, could not be the predicate for a perceived discrimination case. 

Our defense team was successful before the New Jersey Appellate Division. The plaintiff is a former employee of a non-profit agency that provides services to disabled individuals. She filed suit against her former employer and its manager, alleging gender discrimination and retaliation for filing a workers’ compensation claim. As discovery progressed, thousands of pages of discovery were exchanged, which demonstrated that legitimate, long-standing performance deficiencies were the actual basis for her termination. The defendants filed for summary judgment prior to the end of the discovery period, and the Law Division granted the motion, finding no reason not to grant the immediate dismissal, especially as the plaintiff failed to even respond to the statement of material facts. On appeal to the Appellate Division, the court affirmed the dismissal, rejecting the plaintiff’s arguments that the motion judge engaged in a subjective analysis of the facts and thereby made factual findings on disputed issues, and that the motion judge erred by granting the motion before discovery was complete. The court found that the plaintiff failed to demonstrate, with any degree of particularity, that further discovery would supply the missing elements to her cause of action. The court further found that the plaintiff failed to demonstrate a prima facie case of gender discrimination or workers’ compensation retaliation given the unrebutted facts provided by the defendants. 

The plaintiff filed suit against her employer, a governmental agency, alleging she was subject to discrimination under the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination (NJLAD) based upon her disability and that she was subject to retaliation for filing a previous discrimination suit. She further asserted aiding-and-abetting claims against fellow employees. The case was dismissed via summary judgment, and the plaintiff appealed. The Appellate Division accepted our argument that the failure to move the plaintiff to a position she desired did not constitute an adverse employment action or failure to accommodate as she suffered no adverse effect on her salary or benefits, and did not materially alter her working conditions. Further, the court addressed concerns the plaintiff’s physician had expressed when she sought the accommodation, even though she was not transferred to a position in which she preferred to work, and agreed the claims were properly rejected by the trial Judge.

We obtained summary judgment on behalf of a dentist who sold her practice in an employment and contract claim. The plaintiff, also a dentist, was employed by our client. He claimed his contract automatically renewed, and that he was entitled to two years of pay. The plaintiff also claimed he was entitled to be compensated because our client allegedly prevented him from taking records of patients he was treating. The court accepted our argument that the plaintiff waived the extension of his contract, and that the patient records belonged to the practice and the patients, not the plaintiff.

We obtained summary judgment for a national concert promoter and public entity venue owner. The plaintiff purchased outdoor lawn seats for a concert at the PNC Bank Arts Center in Holmdel, New Jersey. After the show started, it began to rain, and the plaintiff alleged the lawn area became slippery, wet and muddy. The plaintiff attempted to walk down the sloped lawn toward the stage to buy her husband a beer. While doing so, her foot got stuck in mud which formed with the rain, and she suffered a severe ankle fracture that was surgically repaired. The trial judge dismissed the case on summary judgment and found the plaintiff’s expert’s report to be unsupported. The court reasoned the plaintiff could not present a claim of liability against the operator for failing to prevent the outdoor grassed seating area from becoming wet and slippery when it rained. He also reasoned the plaintiff could not prove the property was in a dangerous condition as defined by the New Jersey Tort Claims Act.

We successfully persuaded the New Jersey Appellate Division to reverse a coverage determination. The original determination had found that the plaintiff was entitled to $500,000 in coverage under her then-boyfriend’s insurance policy, rather than being limited to the $100,000 in her own policy. The Law Division rejected our arguments that the policy did not deem the plaintiff a “covered person” because she was the named insured in her own policy, and rejected the argument that the step-down provision applied. On appeal, the Appellate Division did not agree with us that the Law Division erred in its determination that the plaintiff was a “covered person,” but it did agreed that the step-down provision applied to limit the plaintiff’s recovery to that of her own policy. Cross petitions for review were filed with the New Jersey Supreme Court, which declined to alter the Appellate Division’s decision, resulting in significant savings on the claim for our client.

The defense prevailed on summary judgment for a nail salon owner against negligence and product liability claims by a plaintiff who slipped and fell off-site while still wearing pedicure slippers. The plaintiff had received a pedicure at our client’s nail salon. When she left the premises, she continued to wear the disposable pedicure slippers. The plaintiff then walked in the rain and eventually slipped and fell upon entering a retail store. The plaintiff brought general negligence and product liability claims against the nail salon’s owner. At the conclusion of discovery, the court granted our motion for summary judgment based upon the plaintiff’s admission that there was nothing wrong with the slippers and her failure to provide expert opinion as to the existence of any defect in the slippers.

We successfully persuaded the court to grant summary judgement on behalf of a major insurer on a complex coverage issue. This coverage case concerned two Virginia personal automobile policies in regard to an automobile accident in New Jersey. The son of a divorced couple sought coverage for an accident he was involved in on a major thoroughfare in New Jersey. At the time of the accident, the son was operating a motor vehicle owned by another Virginia resident, and he had the reasonable expectation that he had permission to operate the vehicle. The accident was very serious, and he sought coverage under both of his parents’ policies. As to the mother’s policy, we convinced the court that the son was not an insured under her policy because he was not so designated on the policy’s declaration page, which was a specific condition of the policy pursuant to Virginia law. As to the father’s policy, once again, we convinced the court that the son was not an insured under this policy given the fact that the mother had sole and exclusive custody under the divorce agreement; thus, the son was not a resident relative of the father’s household. Therefore, neither policy provided coverage for the son, and the insurer was totally dismissed from the case.

We obtained summary judgment for a national trucking company in a lawsuit filed in Middlesex County, New Jersey, arising from a multi-vehicle trucking accident on the New Jersey Turnpike in which a young girl was killed and her mother seriously injured. In addition to being granted summary judgment, we recovered for our client all of its property damage, towing, and related costs from the other vehicles involved in the accident. A consolidated case filed by the County of Middlesex in which they sought to recover cleanup and environmental costs associated with the accident, was also dismissed, with prejudice.

In this employment law lawsuit, the plaintiff was a former employee who filed suit against our non-profit agency client, asserting claims of gender discrimination in violation of the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination and retaliation in violation of the New Jersey Workers’ Compensation Act. This matter involved a long and contested period of discovery, including extensive discovery demands, complex e-discovery and extensive motion practice. During the course of discovery, we were successful in obtaining a motion for reconsideration concerning the production of e-discovery data and other documentation lacking in relevance and proportionality to the matter. We thereafter filed a motion for summary judgment as to both counts in the plaintiff’s complaint, arguing that the plaintiff failed to establish a prima facie claim of discrimination on the basis of gender, as the plaintiff failed to present any evidence demonstrating discrimination or mistreatment on the basis of gender. We further argued that the plaintiff failed to establish a claim of retaliation under the New Jersey Workers’ Compensation Act because the plaintiff failed to establish any nexus between the termination and the filing of a workers’ compensation claim. Our motion for summary judgment was granted in its entirety, with the court finding that the plaintiff was terminated for legitimate, nondiscriminatory reasons.

We obtained a no cause verdict following a one day non-jury trial (conducted virtually) in the Law Division of Hudson County for our client, a national trucking company. The plaintiff alleged the truck swerved into his lane causing property damage. The defense successfully argued that the plaintiff’s identification of the trailer as belonging to our client was not dispositive on the issue of the identification of the company responsible for operation of the truck which was pulling the trailer at the time of the accident. The judge further found the police report was not admissible on the identification of the operator of the vehicle and also that regardless of identification, the plaintiff failed to establish the operator was negligent.

We successfully defended a workers’ compensation case that was transferred from the insurance carrier’s staff counsel after litigation and motion practice. ​After a settlement offer in excess of $16 million was rejected, the case went to trial. At trial, we were able to prove that an uninsured subcontractor was hired by the general contractor, who was the actual employer of the injured worker. Under New Jersey Law, this means that the general contractor is responsible for the workers' compensation benefits for the petitioner. The case was dismissed with prejudice, and the general contractor was also ordered to reimburse the carrier approximately $2.8 million that they had paid out, based upon a previous order to provide medical and temporary benefits to the petitioner.

In this medical malpractice action, the defendant, a New York doctor with no connection to New Jersey, was sued in New Jersey by a former patient who was a New Jersey resident. The court first found that the defendant did not waive consideration of the issue by waiting until after a dispute concerning the sufficiency of the affidavit of merit was resolved. The court then found that the evidence presented by the plaintiff was simply insufficient to establish either general or specific jurisdiction. The fact that the doctor had no connection to New Jersey and that the treatment occurred in New York were key to the decision, as the advertising activity by the New York hospital where the doctor is on staff, which the plaintiff relied upon, was insufficient to establish jurisdiction over the physician, especially as those activities had nothing to do with the plaintiff’s decision to treat with the defendant. In a published decision, the New Jersey Appellate Division affirmed the dismissal of the plaintiff’s complaint for lack of personal jurisdiction.

The decision was later affirmed by the Superior Court of New Jersey, Appellate Division, and we successfully argued both the summary judgment motion and the appeal. The plaintiff, a condominium association, filed suit against the sponsor of a newly constructed mixed-use residential and commercial building in Hoboken, New Jersey. The plaintiff also sued the property management company, the general contractor and various subcontractors involved in the construction. A temporary certificate of occupancy was issued in March 2004 and the plaintiff did not commence litigation until June 2014—more than ten years after substantial completion. Therefore, the claims were barred by the ten-year Statute of Repose, N.J.S.A. § 2A14-1.1. The former property manager for the building and the sponsor entity had common ownership. The plaintiff argued the sponsor maintained control of the property by virtue of its continued involvement through the property management entity, and that the Statute of Repose did not apply to a party in actual possession and control of the property at the time that the defective and unsafe condition caused the injury or damage at issue. The Appellate Division held that the plain language of the Statute of Repose precludes any “action, whether in contract, in tort, or otherwise, to recover damages for any deficiency in the design, planning, surveying, supervision or construction of an improvement to real property, [and] any action for contribution or indemnity for damages sustained on account of such injury . . . more than [ten] years after the performance or furnishing of such services and construction.” N.J.S.A. 2A14-1.1(a). The court found that the claims were also barred by the six-year statute of limitations as the plaintiff alleged that the first repairs at the building were undertaken in 2004, and the complaint was not filed until 2014.

We were successful on a motion for summary judgment, thereby barring the application of the mode of operations in a slip and fall case where an alleged partially eaten sandwich was found in the aisle of the retailer. ​The facts indicated that the sandwich came from a fast-food sandwich shop within the premises and was dropped by an unidentified customer, who took the item to go and dropped it in the aisle before the plaintiff fell. The court ruled that the mode of operations did not apply because the aisle, which contained greeting cards and the like, and did not create an extension of the cafeteria within the retailer’s premises. Further, the court ruled there was no nexus to any self-serve component of the fast food restaurant’s business to the area in the retailer’s store proper where the accident occurred.

We obtained a defense verdict in a legal malpractice case affirmed on appeal. Our client was an attorney who represented a plaintiff in a civil rights case against a New Jersey municipality. The underlying facts were complex, involving fraud claims against the municipality, and claims based on contract, inverse condemnation, civil rights and negligence. In the legal malpractice case, the jury found deviation but no proximate cause. In the legal malpractice case, the plaintiff sought recovery of the legal fees and punitive damages to which he claimed he was entitled in the underlying case, plus prevailing party counsel fees, which can be recovered in a legal malpractice case in New Jersey. We also successfully handled the appeal, which involved all of the issues from the underlying case and the malpractice trial. 

​The plaintiff was a high school junior who alleged he was physically abused by a special education teacher. He sued the teacher, the school district and several administrators, alleging violation of the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the New Jersey Civil Rights Act and the New Jersey Anti-Bullying Statute. After a long period of discovery and many depositions, the court granted our summary judgment motion. 

We obtained summary judgment on behalf of a rock climbing center. ​The plaintiff, a certified climber, was injured when she fell from a 25-foot rock-climbing wall at our client's facility. After reaching the summit of the wall, she pushed off to begin repelling down, only to realize that she forgot to connect to the auto-belay system. She fell to the ground and fractured both ankles and underwent open reduction internal fixation surgery. She had previously visited the client's facility approximately 35 times and had executed a liability waiver on each occasion, including the date of the accident. We moved for summary judgment to dismiss her complaint based upon the fact that the liability waiver was enforceable. The plaintiff argued that the liability waiver was only enforceable as to her claims of ordinary negligence, and that the issue of whether the defendant was grossly negligent was a triable issue of fact. However, we successfully argued that no reasonable jury could find that the client was grossly negligent based on the client's testimony of the safety procedures, protocols and equipment in place at the rock-climbing center. Accordingly, the court granted our motion for summary judgment and dismissed the plaintiff's complaint, in its entirety, against our client.

We obtained summary judgment in favor of our insurance company client. The plaintiff sought UIM coverage from our client as a resident relative of the client’s named insured. The plaintiff was a named insured on another policy which provided UM/UIM coverage. The court granted our motion for summary judgment based upon an exclusion in the client’s policy that excluded UIM coverage for any family member if that family member is a named insured on another policy providing UM/UIM motorists coverage. The court found this exclusion to be clear and unambiguous and to reasonably inform the plaintiff that he was not entitled to UIM coverage under the policy. The court rejected the plaintiff’s argument that the exclusion was vague, ambiguous and unenforceable.

We successfully defended a national home improvement store in the litigation of a claim petition. The petitioner alleged that as a result of his employment at the retailer, he developed back problems and was in need of medical treatment. The defense was able to call into question the petitioner's credibility, as well as that of the petitioner's expert doctor. The judge found that the petitioner did not sustain the burden of proof. Therefore, both the motion for medical and temporary benefits and the claim petition were dismissed, with prejudice.