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.
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 lot of ridiculous lawsuits were filed in New Jersey this year, but only one can be crowned 2014’s Most Ludicrous Lawsuit. This year, the esteemed honor goes to the woman suing Disney for $250 million because she claims the blockbuster hit Frozen was stolen from her autobiography.
This morning at the State House, Sen. Steven Oroho (R-24) joined with the New Jersey Civil Justice Institute, the Commerce and Industry Association of New Jersey, the National Federation of Independent Businesses, the New Jersey Business and Industry Association, and the New Jersey Chamber of Commerce to call for the legislature to pass some common sense legal reforms to improve the state’s business climate.
This Thursday, December 18, the New Jersey Assembly is voting on A3403, which would award more money to workers compensation attorneys at the expense of their injured clients. “The Assembly needs to know that this bill benefits only attorneys and does nothing to help injured workers. This is a blatant cash grab by the trial bar and its only purpose to increase attorney compensation - money which comes directly from the injured worker's payout,” said NJCJI President Marcus Rayner.
For many years, New Jersey has been called out in [...]
This morning, a divided Assembly Budget Committee voted in favor [...]
