The case involved Ana Arenas's claim that L'Oreal terminated her employment as a packaging operator due to age discrimination in violation of the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination. Arenas had declined a voluntary early retirement offer and was later fired after accumulating twenty-six quality error points over twelve months for failing to perform required hourly checks, exceeding the eighteen-point threshold for termination under the company's discipline policy. The court granted L'Oreal's motion for summary judgment, finding that while Arenas had established a prima facie case of age discrimination, she failed to produce evidence showing that the company's legitimate, non-discriminatory reason for her termination was pretextual.
This consolidated case involved over one hundred former employees of Dresser-Rand, a former subsidiary of Ingersoll-Rand, who sued for breach of a 2000 Sales Incentive Plan (SIP) that promised payments tied to the sale price of the company. The plaintiffs alleged the plan remained in effect after the 2004 sale and that they were fraudulently induced to surrender rights under it by accepting a new, less generous incentive plan. On motions for partial summary judgment, the court granted relief to the Nye and Brown plaintiffs on core liability issues, ruling that the 2000 SIP did not expire, that certain executive letters did not constitute a release or accord and satisfaction, and that Ingersoll-Rand breached the contract, while rejecting most affirmative defenses; it denied relief on damages calculations, for three individual Brown plaintiffs on retiree eligibility, and as to bifurcation of trial. The decision rested on the plain language of the 2000 SIP's effective date and termination provisions, which contained no expiration date short of sale and no unilateral cancellation right.
This case arose when Mount Olive school officials retrieved and read aloud portions of a tenth-grade student's confidential psychiatric evaluation during an eleventh-grade English class to illustrate themes from The Catcher in the Rye. The parents sued the board and several employees under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for violating the student's constitutional privacy rights, parallel state constitutional claims, various federal and state student-record statutes, and common-law negligence. The court granted partial summary judgment, holding two employees (Johnson and Bosch) liable on the federal and state privacy claims because their intentional disclosure violated the Fourteenth Amendment and New Jersey Constitution, and also liable for negligence because they breached a duty of care; all claims against the remaining individual defendants and the board were dismissed for lack of personal involvement or municipal policy/custom, and the statutory claims were dismissed because the cited federal laws do not authorize private damages actions.
The case concerned a self-employed currency transport businessman who sought declaratory and injunctive relief against enforcement of New Jersey's money laundering statutes (N.J.S.A. 2C:21-25(a) and 2C:21-26), claiming they were unconstitutionally vague and overbroad, created an impermissible mandatory presumption shifting the burden of proof, and violated the Commerce Clause. The plaintiff alleged that his confidential, recordless transport services, conducted without inquiring into the source of funds, placed him at risk of prosecution and forced him to suspend operations. The U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey granted the state defendants' motion for summary judgment and denied the plaintiff's cross-motion. The court reasoned that no material facts were in dispute, the plaintiff had standing, and the statutes withstood constitutional scrutiny under an objective reasonable-person knowledge standard without impermissibly burdening legitimate commerce or creating vague prohibitions.
This case is an insurance coverage dispute between Burlington Insurance Company, the general liability insurer for construction company Stonebridge, and Northland Insurance Company, the auto insurer for a truck involved in an accident. A truck driver delivering steel to a Stonebridge site was injured when a wrench fell from a Stonebridge employee's tool belt during unloading; the driver sued Stonebridge for negligence, and Burlington defended and settled the claim. Burlington and Stonebridge sought a declaration that Northland owed primary coverage, defense, and indemnification under its policy's loading and unloading provisions, plus reimbursement of costs. The court granted summary judgment to the plaintiffs and denied Northland's motion, holding that the accident arose out of the use of the insured vehicle during unloading, making Northland's auto policy primary over Burlington's excess policy. The ruling applied New Jersey insurance law on vehicle use and other-insurance clauses to determine the insurers' respective obligations.
In Burrell v. DFS Services, LLC, plaintiff Robert Burrell, a victim of identity theft, alleged that Discover and Helio failed to investigate or correct fraudulent charges on his accounts after multiple notifications and instead reported delinquencies to credit agencies, asserting violations of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), Fair Credit Billing Act (FCBA), and state claims for intentional infliction of emotional distress, defamation, and negligence. The court granted the defendants' Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss the FCRA and state law claims but denied it with respect to the FCBA claims. The court reasoned that Burrell had not satisfied the FCRA's specific procedural notice requirements to trigger the companies' duties, that the FCRA preempted his state tort claims, and that his FCBA claims could proceed based on the written notices provided.