On Thursday, New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver was arrested on federal corruption charges. A spokesman for the American Tort Reform Association called the arrest a “turning point” in the effort to combat abuses in the nation’s top judicial hellhole since Silver is the state’s number one opponent of legal reform.
A selection of the need-to-know civil justice news for the [...]
On Tuesday, January 13, 2015, Gov. Chris Christie delivered his fifth State of the State Address. One of the main points of the speech was a call for a “New Jersey renewal.” The New Jersey Civil Justice Institute shares this sentiment.
On January 15, the Assembly Labor Committee voted to advance a trio of bills that would expand New Jersey’s employee protection laws so that they cover unpaid interns. While appreciate the concern for young people in the workplace, and for interns in particular, we are concerned that this bill will cause employers to stop offering unpaid internships. The bill so greatly increases employers’ liability risk that hiring interns becomes imprudent.
The New Jersey Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in one of its biggest cases of 2015, Lippman v. Ethicon, Inc., on Tuesday, January 20. NJCJI is hosting a post-oral argument policy teleforum on this important employment law case on January 21 at noon.
A selection of the need-to-know civil justice news for the [...]
David Tykulsker’s recent opinion piece in the Star-Ledger, “N.J. Supreme Court should protect workplace whistleblowers,” paints a very one-sided, doom-and-gloom picture of the soon-to-be-argued employment law case Lippman v. Ethicon, Inc. Whistle-blowing under Conscientious Employee Protection Act (CEPA) has long been understood to mean something different than doing your job if you are tasked with being an in-house watchdog. Efforts by the plaintiff’s bar to upend this area of law to allow for more lawsuits should be dismissed.
New Jersey’s Consumer Fraud Act has been expanded over the years by the courts and the legislature to the point where it is no longer focused on protecting consumers from fraud. It is instead a catch-all claim that is pulled into all sorts of disputes - consumers and fraud optional. A few recent cases really illustrate this point.
A few weeks ago, Law360 published an opinion piece by William J. Pinilis of Pinilis Halpern LLP concerning our recent panel discussion of New Jersey’s Consumer Fraud Act and our overall efforts to reform the Act. This week, Law360 has a rebuttal to Mr. Pinilis’ column penned by fellow panel member Dr. Joanna Shepherd of the Emory University School of Law.
A selection of the need-to-know civil justice news for Dec. [...]
