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New Jersey
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June 18, 2013
Commerce Bank Founder Wants New Trial Over $17M Severance
Commerce Bancorp LLC founder Vernon Hill II asked a New Jersey federal judge Monday for a new trial over a $17.2 million severance payment he sought after an investigation into real estate dealings led to his resignation, saying a jury instruction made jurors believe the payment was legally prohibited.
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June 18, 2013
Law Firm's Arbitration Clause Doesn't Cover Age Bias Claims
A New Jersey appellate panel Tuesday agreed to bifurcate certain charges against a law firm accused of discriminating against an older attorney, sending counts of alleged breach of contract to arbitration while leaving the discrimination counts to be tried in court.
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June 18, 2013
GMO Labeling Bill Advances In NJ Legislature
Bipartisan legislation requiring the labeling of genetically modified food sold in New Jersey was cleared by an Assembly panel on Monday despite business concerns that the measure will be too costly and indirectly expose companies to new liability under the state's powerful consumer fraud law.
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June 18, 2013
NJ Assembly Panel Pushes E-Court Bill Forward
A New Jersey Assembly committee Monday continued to advance a measure empowering the state judiciary to increase filing fees to modernize how courts handle documents and other case information, though the panel changed the bill's funding plan to prioritize legal help for the poor.
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June 18, 2013
Merck Investors Cut Claims In Securities Fraud MDL
Several Allianz Global Investors units and Swedish national pension fund Fjarde AP-fonden have dismissed their claims in a multidistrict litigation claiming Merck & Co. and its executives misrepresented arthritis painkiller Vioxx to inflate Merck stock, say documents filed Tuesday in New Jersey federal court.
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June 18, 2013
Bankrupt Insurer Ducks Congoleum Asbestos Coverage
A New Jersey appeals court on Monday upheld a liquidation court ruling that struck bankrupt Congoleum Corp.'s requests for excess insurance coverage from Integrity Insurance Co. for asbestos-related claims because the claims' liability and value allegedly weren't fixed by a deadline in Integrity's amended liquidation closing plan.
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June 18, 2013
K-Sea Escapes Investor Suit Over Obsolete Oil Tankers
A New Jersey federal judge on Friday tossed a putative class action alleging oil barge operator K-Sea Transportation Partners LP misled investors in 2009 about the company’s earnings and neglected to reveal that its obsolete fleet of single-hull tankers would be phased out.
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June 17, 2013
NJ Justices Take Up Arbitration Clause In Debt Agency Suit
The New Jersey Supreme Court on Thursday granted certification to a case in which it will decide if the arbitration clause in a contract a woman signed with a debt management agency was sufficient to waive her right to sue for damages.
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June 17, 2013
NJ High Court To Mull State Subpoena Power Over Atty Docs
The New Jersey Supreme Court will decide whether prosecutors investigating the post-indictment conduct of a defendant can use grand jury subpoenas to obtain attorney records before the initial case against that person is finished, according to an order posted Monday.
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June 17, 2013
NYPD Surveillance Spurs NJ Senate To Advance Privacy Bill
A New Jersey Senate committee on Monday advanced legislation to require out-of-state law enforcement agencies to inform state officials if they intend to engage in local counter-terrorist surveillance activities, a measure inspired by controversial reports that New York police secretly investigated innocent New Jersey citizens.
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June 17, 2013
WR Grace Bankruptcy Plan Favors Company, 3rd Circ. Told
In arguments before the Third Circuit on Monday, entities including the Canadian government and several major lenders said a bankruptcy reorganization plan approved for W.R. Grace & Co. left them undercompensated for their claims while favoring asbestos plaintiffs who sued the company directly.
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June 17, 2013
$400M Kinder Morgan Pipeline Defiles Tribal Lands, Suit Says
A Native American tribe sued Kinder Morgan Inc. in New Jersey federal court on Friday, claiming a portion of the $400 million natural gas pipeline expansion in Pennsylvania and New Jersey by one of the energy giant's units will destroy tribal lands and sacred burial grounds.
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June 17, 2013
Merck, Pfizer Sue Mylan Over Generic Eye Drug Application
Pfizer Inc., Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp. and InSite Vision Inc. banded together Monday to slam Mylan Pharmaceuticals Inc. with an infringement suit in New Jersey federal court, alleging Mylan's application to market a generic version of the eye drug AzaSite violates four of their patents.
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June 17, 2013
Bayer Wants Tolling Order Nixed In $100M Sex Bias Suit
Bayer Corp. on Friday urged a New Jersey federal judge to overturn an order extending the statute of limitations for plaintiffs to opt in to Equal Pay Act collective action claims in a $100 million sex discrimination suit against the company.
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June 17, 2013
EPA Exits Agreement Over LG's NJ Headquarters Building
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will exit portions of an energy conservation and sustainability pact with LG Electronics USA Inc. over concerns that the height of a planned headquarters building in Englewood Cliffs, N.J., will harm the natural beauty of the state's Palisades region.
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June 17, 2013
Challengers Blast NJ Senate Election To State High Court
A New Jersey appellate ruling backing Gov. Chris Christie's ability to have voters pick a replacement for the late U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg 20 days before the Nov. 5 general election overstates the governor’s authority and encourages voter suppression, opponents told the state Supreme Court on Monday.
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June 17, 2013
Attys Colluded On Rawlings Ad Action Deal, Plaintiff Says
A plaintiff in a putative class action alleging Rawlings Sporting Goods Co. Inc. deceptively advertised an athletic performance bracelet objected Friday to a proposed $100,000 settlement in a related New Jersey class action, saying the parties colluded on an “illusory and valueless” deal.
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June 17, 2013
Dems Challenge Christie's Date Choice For Special Election
A New Jersey Senate panel cleared legislation Monday to move the state's November general election to an October special election that Gov. Chris Christie planned to fill late U.S. Sen Frank Lautenberg's seat, saying the special election date choice was motivated by Christie's gubernatorial re-election interests.
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June 17, 2013
J&J Inks $1B Deal To Acquire Aragon Pharmaceuticals
Johnson & Johnson plans to acquire California-based Aragon Pharmaceuticals Inc. in a deal worth up to $1 billion, the companies said on Monday, in an agreement that the New Jersey pharmaceutical giant hopes will boost its efforts in prostate cancer drug development.
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June 14, 2013
NJ High Court Will Review Christie's Special Election Plan
The New Jersey Supreme Court has agreed to hear a constitutional challenge to Gov. Chris Christie’s plan to hold a special October election to fill the late U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg’s seat.
Expert Analysis
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Majestic May Prompt 3rd Circ. 'Property Of Estate' Review
The Third Circuit has overturned a bankruptcy court order that allowed the debtor, Majestic Star Casino LLC, to avoid taxes imposed upon it by operation of law when the casino operator’s nondebtor parent revoked its own “S” corporation status. This decision articulates important principles that could lead to a reconsideration of the scope of the concept of “property of the estate” in other contexts as well, say Steven Wilamowsky and Jeffery Black of Bingham McCutchen LLP.
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And Now A Word From The Panel ...
At its May 30 hearing in Louisville, Ky, the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation will address arguments concerning whether to create MDL proceedings for three different food industry consumer fraud cases, which involve overlapping class actions filed in various jurisdictions throughout the country. Of particular interest in these cases is the approach adopted by the food manufacturer defendants with respect to MDL centralization, says Alan Rothman of Kaye Scholer LLP.
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The Ethical Neutral: What Must Be Disclosed In Mediation
In light of the popularity of mediation, uniform disclosure and conflict-of-interest rules along the lines of the Uniform Mediation Act should be adopted by all the federal courts and all states. This would make it much easier for the parties, counsel and the mediator to know the applicable rules and to comply with them, says Bruce Friedman of ADR Services Inc.
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When Rights Of Publicity Trump 1st Amendment
An important practice tip that flows from the Third Circuit's opinion in Ryan Hart v. Electronic Arts Inc. is that talismanic invocation of the First Amendment does not resolve the legal problem of balancing that amendment with competing rights such as the right of publicity, says Ronald Katz of Manatt Phelps & Phillips LLP.
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Rise Of The Machines — Predictive Coding Goes Mainstream
The pros of using predictive coding far outweigh the cons. Given the heavy pressure on law firms and in-house counsel to reduce discovery costs, as well as the Justice Department's recent stance on the subject, it appears predictive coding will continue to emerge from the obscure world of legal technology to the mainstream of legal practice, say Michael Moscato and Myles Bartley of Curtis Mallet-Prevost Colt & Mosle LLP.
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Past Its Prime: Weedo V. Stone-E-Brick
It is time for the New Jersey Supreme Court to take up again the construction-defect coverage issues first addressed in Weedo v. Stone-E-Brick Inc. and to update them for the post-1986 commercial general liability coverage of subcontractors’ faulty workmanship, says Carl Salisbury of Kilpatrick Townsend Stockton LLP.
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Calif. Chemical Safety Rules Push Constitutional Envelope
Impatience with the pace of Toxic Substances Control Act reform at the federal level is understandable, but substituting individual state action for a perceived lack of federal action may be the classic example of a cure which is worse than the disease. Many think California’s Safer Consumer Product Regulations now prove that, says Ward Benshoof of Alston & Bird LLP.
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Circuit Split On Market Share-Based Discounts Remains
The U.S. Supreme Court’s refusal to review ZF Meritor LLC v. Eaton Transmission Corporation means that the Third Circuit’s less permissive view of dominant firm pricing conduct remains intact for now, and suggests that Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware federal courts will likely be the preferred venues for challenges to such conduct, says Eric Berman of Williams Mullen.
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How McBurney V. Young Will Impact State FOIAs
In McBurney v. Young, the U.S. Supreme Court has permitted the still-uncommon practice of state legislatures to restrict use of their freedom of information laws to citizens of the states. But states should not race to adopt citizens-only provisions in their freedom of information laws, say John Borger and Leita Walker of Faegre Baker Daniels LLP.
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E-Commerce Taxation Bill Might Be Unconstitutional
Recent decisions from the federal courts suggest that the constitutionality of the proposed Marketplace Fairness Act, which would permit states to require out-of-state businesses to collect and remit sales taxes on goods sold over the Internet, is open to serious debate, says Michael Abate of Dinsmore & Shohl LLP.