Category: Top Stories

Ciattarelli To Speak At NJCJI’s Winter Policy Forum

February 3, 2017

Asm. Jack Ciattarelli (R-Somerville), one of the top Republican candidates for governor, has accepted NJCJI’s invitation to speak at our annual Winter Policy Forum.

The Super Bowl Lawsuit That Never Ends

February 2, 2017

According to the New York Times, Josh Finkelman is the “Erin Brockovich of Super Bowl tickets.” After paying well over face value for tickets to Super Bowl XLVIII, which was held at Met Life Stadium in 2014, he sued the National Football League under New Jersey’s Consumer Fraud Act, arguing he should have been able to attend the game without buying expensive tickets on the secondary market.

Legislative Update

January 27, 2017

Both houses of the New Jersey Legislature held their first voting session of 2017 on Monday, January 23, and each house took up a bill the New Jersey Civil Justice Institute is opposing.

Decision Invites More Out-Of-State Plaintiffs

January 24, 2017

The New Jersey Supreme Court has released its opinion in a long-running lawsuit over the acne medicine Accutane. Instead of throwing out the case as time-barred like NJCJI suggested it do, the Court adopted a new test for determining what statute of limitations should apply in case brought by an out-of-state plaintiff.

Bringing Common Sense To Our Legal System

January 20, 2017

Our court system shouldn’t have to deal with suits over the length of sandwiches, amusement park rides that make kids too dizzy, and gassy co-workers. But it does. Why? Because numerous state laws explicitly encourage litigation when other means of dispute resolution would be quicker and more cost effective; poorly drafted statutes invite endless More »

Arbitration One Of A Host Of Issues To Watch In 2017

January 6, 2017

A recent article by Law360 surveyed New Jersey’s legal community about what issues it thinks we should all keep an eye on as members of the legislature come back to Trenton to finish up the second half of their two-year session and vie for re-election. Employment laws that increase employer liability, such as paid sick leave and equal pay, were identified by many as key issues, and NJCJI’s chief counsel, Alida Kass, pointed out that several anti-arbitration measures have also been introduced.

TCCWNA Lawsuits Highlighted As Top 2016 Legal Trend

January 6, 2017

The New Jersey Law Journal identified the “explosion of suits based on the New Jersey Truth-In-Consumer Contract Warranty and Notice Act” as one of the top legal issues to emerge during the past year.

Exploding Gas Can The Subject Of 2016’s Most Ludicrous New Jersey Lawsuit

December 29, 2016

The votes are in! This year’s most Ludicrous New Jersey Lawsuit is the dispute over whether Walmart should be liable because a gas can it sold exploded when someone tried to start a fire with it.

New Jersey Is A “Judicial Hellhole”

December 15, 2016

The American Tort Reform Association has released its annual “Judicial Hellholes” report, and New Jersey is near the top of its list. ATRA notes that our state’s consumer protection laws are far from mainstream, and our court system is becoming hostile to arbitration agreements, in direct contravention of federal law.

NJCJI Asks High Court to Nix Some TCCWNA Class Actions

December 9, 2016

The New Jersey Civil Justice Institute has filed an amicus brief in a class action brought by consumers who claim a restaurant’s failure to clearly post prices in the menu on all drink items violates New Jersey’s Consumer Fraud Act (CFA) and Truth-in-Consumer Contract, Warranty, and Notice Act (TCCWNA). NJCJI has been spearheading the effort to reform both the Consumer Fraud Act and the Truth-in-Consumer Contract, Warranty, and Notice Act, so we are very interested in what the court will do with this case and a similar case where the court will decide whether “charging different prices for the same beverage, depending upon where in the restaurant the beverage was served” can be the basis of a CFA and TCCWNA class action.