Dickinson Richards Debevoise

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.

labor & employmentcivil rights

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.

labor & employmentbusiness & regulatory

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.

civil rightstorts & liability

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.

criminal lawcivil rights

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.

business & regulatorytorts & liability

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.

business & regulatoryprocedure

This case involves a motion for reconsideration by defendant Schmidt Manufacturing, Inc. of the court's prior rulings that it lacks personal jurisdiction over third-party defendant Sypris Technologies, Inc. in a products liability suit arising from an industrial accident in which a worker was injured by a sandblasting machine. The court denied the motion. The reasoning was that the motion was untimely given the case's history, Schmidt identified no new evidence, intervening change in law, or manifest injustice to justify reconsideration, and the New Jersey Supreme Court decision cited by Schmidt impermissibly broadened the stream-of-commerce theory of specific personal jurisdiction beyond limits set by the U.S. Supreme Court.

proceduretorts & liability

This case involved a challenge by the NAACP and individual African American plaintiffs against the North Hudson Regional Fire & Rescue’s residency requirements for firefighter hiring, brought under Title VII, 42 U.S.C. § 1981, and the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination on grounds of disparate impact. The court granted the plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment and permanently enjoined the department from using its residents-only eligibility list, while denying the department’s and intervenors’ motions. The core reasoning was that statistical evidence demonstrated the residency rule caused a substantial underrepresentation of African American candidates on the hiring lists, the department failed to establish a valid business necessity defense, and the Supreme Court’s Ricci decision did not shield the practice from disparate impact liability.

civil rightslabor & employment

In Clark v. Prudential Insurance Co. of America, plaintiffs Beverly Clark, Jesse J. Paul, and Marc H. Litwack brought a putative class action against Prudential alleging fraudulent misrepresentation, fraudulent omissions, breach of the duty of good faith and fair dealing, violation of California’s Unfair Competition Law, and violation of the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act, all stemming from the sale and administration of Comprehensive Health Insurance Policies (CHIP) purchased between 1973 and 1981. Prudential moved to dismiss most claims in the Third Amended Complaint. The court granted the motion in part and denied it in part, applying choice-of-law rules to determine that California and Indiana law governed the respective plaintiffs’ claims, dismissing certain claims as time-barred or for failure to state a claim under the applicable state laws, while allowing others such as Clark’s breach of good faith claim and aspects of the fraud claims to proceed. The decision rested on analysis of statutes of limitations, pleading requirements for fraud and unfair competition under California law, and the scope of available remedies.

business & regulatoryhealthcaretorts & liability

This case involved a high school teacher who sued his school board and administrators under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, claiming that a policy requiring staff to obtain permission before distributing materials in teacher mailboxes violated his First Amendment rights. The teacher had deliberately placed over 100 memoranda in the mailboxes without permission to provoke discipline and then received an official reprimand. The court granted the defendants' motion for summary judgment and dismissed the claims. It reasoned that the policy was a content-neutral time, place, and manner restriction rather than a content-based limit on speech, so it was not governed by the Pickering/Garcetti or Tinker standards; under the applicable test, the teacher's actions were unprotected and the reprimand did not violate the Constitution.

free speechcivil rights

This case involves a disparate impact challenge brought by the NAACP and individual plaintiffs against the North Hudson Regional Fire & Rescue's residency requirements for hiring firefighters, claiming the rules disproportionately excluded African-American applicants from nearby counties under Title VII and state law. After an earlier preliminary injunction expanded the eligible residency area and a remand from the Third Circuit for reconsideration in light of Ricci v. DeStefano, the court addressed whether to maintain or lift the injunction. The court decided to vacate the preliminary injunction. It reasoned that the residency requirement advances legitimate business goals in a significant way and that equitable factors, including impacts on intervenors and the status quo, favor lifting the bar on hiring from the existing list.

civil rightslabor & employment

The case concerns the RNC's motion to vacate or modify a 1982 Consent Decree (modified in 1987) that restricts the RNC's and New Jersey Republican State Committee's ballot security programs—defined as efforts to prevent or remedy voter fraud—in response to DNC claims of voter intimidation targeting minority voters during the 1981 New Jersey gubernatorial election under the Voting Rights Act and the 14th and 15th Amendments. The court denied vacatur but granted modification of the decree in five respects: clarifying that only the parties may enforce it, shortening the preclearance period from 20 to 10 days, narrowing the definition of ballot security initiatives, defining normal poll watch functions, and adding a termination date eight years after the ruling (extendable upon proof of a violation). The reasoning was that intervening changes in election laws and evidence of voter fraud did not eliminate the ongoing threat of voter intimidation to minority participation, which outweighs fraud risks, but the decree had become unworkable due to overly broad interpretations and lacked a termination provision creating inequitable perpetual obligations.

electionscivil rightscriminal lawfederal power

This case concerns environmental contamination on former agricultural land in Montville, New Jersey, once operated as a fruit orchard and later developed into a residential neighborhood by Woodmont entities. The Bonnieview Homeowners Association and individual homeowners sued the developers, prior owners, and the township, asserting claims including under environmental statutes, the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act, negligence, and breach of contract, while the Woodmont defendants filed counterclaims and a cross-claim. On cross-motions for summary judgment, the court granted the township's motion in full, granted the Woodmont defendants' motion in part and denied it in part, and granted the plaintiffs' motion in part and denied it in part. The rulings turned on the sufficiency of evidence regarding the parties' knowledge of contamination, the existence of imminent endangerment, compliance with contractual disclosures, and the applicability of various defenses and statutory provisions.

environmentpropertytorts & liability

In Abuhouran v. Grondolsky, petitioners Hitham and Aktham Abuhouran sought relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 to vacate their money laundering convictions, claiming actual innocence based on the Supreme Court's ruling in United States v. Santos that "proceeds" under the money laundering statute refers to profits rather than gross receipts. The petitioners had been convicted following guilty pleas related to a scheme involving over $9 million in bank frauds and additional frauds committed while on bail. The court dismissed both § 2241 petitions with prejudice, finding that the substantive claims lacked merit because the money derived from the bank frauds constituted profits within the meaning of the statute. The decision did not address sentencing issues or resolve questions about the voluntariness of appellate waivers, as the underlying Santos-based arguments failed.

criminal lawprocedure

Reichhold, Inc. sued United States Metals Refining Company (USMRC) under CERCLA and the New Jersey Spill Act to recover past and future costs of investigating and remediating metals and CVOC contamination at a former industrial site in Carteret, New Jersey, that USMRC had sold to Reichhold in 1960. After a bench trial, the court found that USMRC's historical smelting and slag operations were the source of metals contamination requiring site-wide analytical delineation, capping of the Staflex Parcel, and capping of the BTL Parcel, while CVOC remediation and certain delta costs were not attributable to USMRC. The court awarded Reichhold specified past costs for the metals-related work, entered a declaratory judgment requiring USMRC to pay future costs for the Staflex cap in full and half the future costs for the BTL cap, and dismissed USMRC's counterclaim, allocating responsibility based on evidence of each party's contribution to the contamination that necessitated the specific remedial measures.

environmentbusiness & regulatory

This case involved music promoters Singer Management and Live Gold suing the New Jersey Attorney General to block enforcement of the state's Truth in Music Act, which restricts live performances using famous group names unless certain conditions like federal trademark registration or tribute identification are met. The plaintiffs claimed the Act was preempted by the federal Lanham Act and violated constitutional protections including the First Amendment, takings clause, and equal protection. After the underlying disputes over the Act's application were resolved, the court granted the state's motion to dismiss the federal claims as moot and denied the plaintiffs' appeal of a magistrate's denial of attorneys' fees. The court also declined to retain supplemental jurisdiction over the state's counterclaims under consumer protection laws, citing the early stage of litigation and principles of judicial economy.

business & regulatoryfree speechcivil rightsfederal power

The case involved River Nile Invalid Coach and Ambulance, Inc., a Medicaid provider of non-emergency medical transportation services in New Jersey, suing state officials to prevent the awarding of a contract to an independent broker for such services under a request for proposal. The plaintiff sought injunctive relief and summary judgment, claiming violations of due process and other rights related to its provider agreement. The court denied the plaintiff's motion for summary judgment and granted the defendants' cross-motion, ruling that the plaintiff lacked standing because it had no protected property interest in continued participation as a Medicaid provider and could still provide services under the new system. The decision rested on the terms of the provider agreement allowing termination without cause and the absence of a statutory right to maintain direct contracts.

healthcarebusiness & regulatory

This case concerns a civil forfeiture action by the United States against ephedrine seized by the DEA from drug manufacturers LVT and Kirk, who lacked valid production quotas under the Combat Methamphetamine Epidemic Act and related regulations. The claimants asserted counterclaims for damages under the FTCA, declaratory relief under the APA alleging wrongful seizure due to the DEA's failure to timely promulgate or apply 2007-2008 quotas, and attorneys' fees. The court consolidated the proceedings and dismissed all counterclaims, holding that CAFRA statutorily bars damages petitions in forfeiture cases, that the underlying forfeiture action provides an adequate remedy for the declaratory claims, and that fees must be sought by post-judgment motion rather than counterclaim.

criminal lawbusiness & regulatoryfederal powerproperty

This case involved an insurance coverage dispute in which Travelers Indemnity Company sought a declaration that it had no obligation to cover claims against its insured, Dammann & Co., arising from Dammann's sale of mercury-contaminated vanilla beans to International Flavors & Fragrances (IFF). Dammann counterclaimed for coverage and also pursued third-party claims, while IFF sought to assert cross-claims against Dammann for breach of warranty and products liability seeking over $5 million in economic losses. After Dammann and Travelers settled, the court addressed IFF's appeal of a magistrate judge's denial of leave to amend and a related motion to file an amended cross-claim. The court denied both motions, holding that the proposed products liability cross-claim was time-barred under the four-year UCC statute of limitations for sales of goods and that equitable tolling did not apply because there was no evidence of misleading conduct by Dammann or the court. The ruling rested on the determination that IFF's claims concerned economic losses from a commercial contract for goods rather than tort claims for damage to other property, and that mediation efforts did not toll the limitations period.

business & regulatoryproceduretorts & liability

Plaintiffs Nancy and Burt Sullivan sued Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp. and related entities in New Jersey Superior Court, asserting state-law products liability and consumer fraud claims arising from Nancy Sullivan's use of the prescription drug Zelnorm. Novartis removed the case to the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey on diversity grounds before service was effected. Plaintiffs moved to remand, arguing that the forum defendant rule barred removal and that no federal question jurisdiction existed. The court granted remand, concluding that 28 U.S.C. § 1441(b) precludes a forum defendant from removing even prior to service because a literal reading would produce results at odds with congressional intent, and that the state-law claims did not present a substantial federal issue supporting jurisdiction.

proceduretorts & liability