Plaintiff Michael Strahan appeals from an amended judgment of divorce entered on January 12, 2007 and an order entered on March 22, 2007 denying his motion for reconsideration... ... ... Plaintiff is a football player who has been under contract with the New York Giants since 1993. He began dating defendant in October 1994. At the time they met, defendant was employed as a model and manager for a cosmetics company, earning about $70,000 per year. In 1995, the parties moved in together and...  

Plaintiff Fred Burnett appeals from an order entered on December 4, 2006 directing defendants Bergen County and the... ... ... Bergen County Clerk's Office to submit a written bid detailing the costs of copying the government records requested by plaintiff under the Open Public Records Act (OPRA). Plaintiff appeals from those paragraphs of the order requiring defendants to redact and remove social security numbers (SSNs) from the records; requiring each document be watermarked1 with the copying...  

On leave granted, the State appeals from an order entered on December 10, 2007 granting defendant's motion to preclude the... ... ... testimony of Glenford Brown pursuant to N.J.R.E. 511, [cleric]-penitent privilege. We reverse... This appeal arises out of allegations that defendant sexually assaulted his daughters between 1996 and 2000. In 2000, the children reported to their mother that their father had sexually abused them. The mother then contacted her pastor, Glenford Brown, and reported...  

In this appeal, we consider the interplay between two competing public policies, each of which are fostered by the award of counsel fees to the prevailing party in the litigation. On the one hand, our Legislature has adopted certain fee-shifting statutes requiring or permitting an award of counsel fees to a prevailing plaintiff in order "to ensure `that plaintiffs with bona fide claims are able to find lawyers to represent them[,]... ... ... to attract competent counsel in cases involving...  

Defendant Reda M. Aziz appeals from the order of March 21, 2006, requiring that he pay plaintiff Mary L. Ibrahim $125 per week in child support plus $25 per week in arrears. Although... ... ... defendant lives in Egypt and maintains that he earns only $86 per month there, the trial court imputed income of $680 per week to defendant based on the salary a store manager would earn in New Jersey as reported by the New Jersey Department of Labor. Defendant, however, is not employed in New Jersey,...  

Defendant Tri-Way Kars, Inc., appeals from an October 12, 2007, judgment of the Law Division on de novo review upholding an April 4, 2007, decision by the Central Municipal Court of Bergen County finding defendant guilty of violating the Consumer... ... ... Fraud Act (CFA), N.J.S.A. 56:8-1 to -166, and ordering it to pay a fine of $1257, costs of $33 and restitution of $2062.50 to Samuel White, the individual consumer involved in the subject motor vehicle sale... I... This action was begun in...  

Defendant was convicted of official misconduct, N.J.S.A. 2C:30-2(a)(counts one, three and five), setting false fire... ... ... alarms, N.J.S.A. 2C:33-3 (counts two, four and six) and committing a pattern of official misconduct, N.J.S.A. 2C:30-7 (count seven), for making false fire alarms as a volunteer firefighter on three separate dates.1 He was sentenced to concurrent terms of eight years on counts one, three, five and seven, and to five years on counts two, four and six. On this appeal,...  

This is a declaratory judgment action. Plaintiff Sebastian Fernandez filed a complaint seeking to resolve a dispute between himself and defendant Nationwide Mutual Fire Insurance Company, his personal injury protection (PIP) carrier, regarding the priority of their claims to the insurance proceeds of the third-party tortfeasors. Nationwide appeals from the April 13, 2007 order of the Law Division, which granted plaintiff's motion for summary judgment; denied its cross-motion for summary...  

Nationwide class action suits, which seek redress for victims of defective products, consumer fraud, environmental torts, and other wrongs, are now part of the modern legal landscape. Such actions, however, pose particular challenges to our system of federalism. The central issue in this case is whether, pursuant to the Full Faith and Credit Clause, a New Jersey court must give preclusive effect to a nationwide class action consumer fraud settlement in Tennessee and dismiss an ongoing...  

Plaintiff George Harvey, the owner of Harvey's Towing Service, appeals from the August 18, 2006, interlocutory order... ... ... that limited his claim for monetary damages against defendant, Township of Deptford (Deptford). Applying the limit fixed by that order, the trial judge subsequently entered judgment on January 22, 2007, in favor of plaintiff against defendant in the amount of $98,705. Harvey argues that the judge misapplied N.J.S.A. 40:48-2.50 to limit his damages on a per vehicle...  

In this matter, we are called upon to determine the scope that our Legislature intended to be afforded to the statute enacted in June 1993, which granted automobile insurers immunity from suit arising from an insured's election of coverage. See N.J.S.A. 17:28-1.9(a). The trial court, after first concluding that the statute did not provide the insurer with immunity, determined that the insurer was equitably estopped to decline... ... ... coverage. The Appellate Division reversed, finding that...  

Plaintiff entered into an agreement with the predecessor to defendant Nexxar Group, Inc. (Nexxar) under which he was employed as its President and Chief Executive Officer. Plaintiff also entered into an agreement with defendant Financial Technology Ventures, L.P. (FT Ventures) and other investors for the purchase of stock in Nexxar's predecessor. Plaintiff's employment agreement with Nexxar contains a provision for arbitration of disputes. Plaintiff's stock purchase agreement with FT Ventures...  

Ronald Jamgochian was twice convicted of sexually assaulting young women after luring them to his "photography studio" with offers of modeling work. After serving the prison term on his most recent conviction, Jamgochian was released subject to community supervision for life. Thereafter, Jamgochian propositioned a seventeen-year-old waitress with an... ... ... unspecified job opportunity while telling her to keep their conversations secret. She became suspicious and reported the matter...  

American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey ("ACLU-NJ") appeals from a Directive issued by the Attorney General of the State of New Jersey on July 18, 2007, with respect to exit polling activities on election days. The Directive was issued by the Attorney General in her capacity as Chief Law Enforcement Officer and Chief Election Official of the State, and thus the matter is properly before us under Rule 2:2-3(a)(2)... The Directive, issued to County Boards of Election and County...  

Following a jury trial, defendant originally received a fifteen-year sentence to the custody of the Department of Corrections with an 85% parole ineligibility term under the No Early Release Act (NERA), N.J.S.A. 2C:43-7.2, for first-degree aggravated sexual assault. He received a concurrent four-year... ... ... term on a conviction for endangering the welfare of a minor, N.J.S.A. 2C:24-4a, and a consecutive seven-year term for burglary, N.J.S.A. 2C:18-2. On defendant's direct appeal, his...  

We consolidate these companion cases for the purpose of this opinion and address whether it was error to deny the motion of the respective sureties to remit the forfeited bail. In both cases, a corporate surety posted bail to secure the pretrial release of a defendant who, upon being released from jail, failed to appear at a scheduled court proceeding. A bench warrant was issued for each defendant, and the bails were deemed forfeited. Upon learning of the forfeiture, the surety in one case...  

In this case we decide whether the verbal threshold, N.J.S.A. 59:9-2(d), of the New Jersey Tort Claims Act (Act), N.J.S.A. 59:1-1 to 12-3, which essentially requires an objective permanent injury to recover damages, applies to a willful misconduct claim against a public employee. Additionally, we decide whether the trial court's failure to charge the jury that the Act's good faith defense, N.J.S.A. 59:3-3, did not apply to plaintiff's false arrest/false imprisonment claim requires a new trial....  

In Lehmann v. Toys `R' Us, Inc., 132 N.J. 587 (1993), Justice Garibaldi, writing for this Court, delineated the standards of proof that are necessary in order to bring a discrimination claim premised on acts of sexual harassment. To demonstrate a discriminatory hostile environment caused by... ... ... sexual harassment, a plaintiff must show that "the complained-of conduct (1) would not have occurred but for the employee's gender; and it was (2) severe or pervasive enough to make a (3)...  

This appeal requires us to consider the principles that govern a trial court's consideration of a claim of the discriminatory use of peremptory challenges in light of recent decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States that modify the principles set forth in State v. Gilmore, 103 N.J. 508 (1986)... A jury found defendant guilty of conspiracy to violate the narcotics laws, in violation of N.J.S.A. 2C:5-2; possession of cocaine, in violation of N.J.S.A. 2C:35-10(a)(1); possession of...  

By leave granted, the State appeals from an order dismissing thirty-six counts of a forty-two-count indictment. Thirty-two of the dismissed counts charged six State employees and two employees of an outside vendor contracting with the State with official misconduct, N.J.S.A. 2C:30-2; the remaining four counts charged two of the State employees and the two employees of the outside vendor with engaging in a pattern of... ... ... official misconduct, N.J.S.A. 2C:30-7.1 We affirm in part and...