Over the past few years, we’ve been highlighting the unique danger New Jersey’s Truth-in-Consumer Contract, Warranty and Notice Act (TCCWNA) poses to our state’s businesses, but we aren’t the only ones concerned about the impact this law is having on our state’s business climate. Below are some of the ways this law has been described over the past few months.

 

“a big red flag for those looking to sell in the Garden State” -Joe Granger Chief Executive Officer of Croscill in an NJ.com article

 

“class-action lawyers… may have struck gold.” –The Economist

 

“These cases seem to be driven by profit motive against the backdrop of a statute enacted in the 1980s that is being exploited in a way that the New Jersey Legislature never could have intended” –Lisa Glasband of Locke Lord in an NJ.com article

 

“a feeding frenzy [for] plaintiffs’ lawyers” –Socially Aware Blog  

 

“It’s liability that’s created by the contract itself. The irony is the company tries to use the warranty to protect itself against liability and gets itself sued under this odd New Jersey statute.” –Gavin Rooney of Lowenstein Sandler in Forbes

 

“We like to call [laws like TCCWNA] ‘gotcha’ statutes” –Matt Fedor of Drinker Biddle in an NJ.com article

 

“unique in providing a penalty for using verbiage [“void where prohibited by law”] that a court in that state would strike as meaningless anyway” –Forbes

 

“The cases have a tinge of the bizarre” –The Economist