Justia New Jersey Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

The issue this case presented for the New Jersey Supreme Court's consideration centered on the circumstances under which a defendant can request a civil reservation. Defendant pled guilty to failing to report an accident. The transcript of the municipal court session contained no mention of a civil reservation. Following the municipal court session, defendant's attorney wrote a letter to the municipal court judge to confirm that a civil reservation was placed on the plea. There was no record whether defendant's attorney sent a copy of this request to plaintiff's attorney, who attended the municipal court proceeding. That day, the municipal court entered an order directing that defendant's guilty plea shall not be used or be evidential in any civil proceeding. After review of this case, the Supreme Court found that the request for a civil reservation was not made contemporaneously with the guilty plea or in open court. To the extent the Appellate Division held that a defendant may request a civil reservation after he has left municipal court, the Supreme Court disavowed that ruling. Nevertheless, the guilty plea in this case was inadmissible in the civil proceeding. "Whether a person reports an accident or files the report out of time has no relevance to the issue of whether he operated a motor vehicle negligently. Moreover, if a report had been filed, N.J.S.A. 39:4-130 expressly bars the admission of any statement made in such report in a civil or criminal proceeding for any purpose." View "Maida v. Kuskin" on Justia Law

A Bergen County Grand Jury charged Michael Sumulikoski with three counts of second-degree sexual assault (Counts 2, 3, and 4), one count of second-degree endangering the welfare of a child by engaging in sexual contact (Count 1), and two counts of second-degree endangering the welfare of a child by allowing Artur Sopel to perform unlawful acts in the victim's presence (Counts 5 and 6). The Grand Jury charged Sopel with six counts of second-degree sexual assault (Counts 8, 9, and 13 through 16) and two counts of second-degree endangering the welfare of a child by engaging in sexual contact (Counts 7 and 12). Sopel was also charged with several additional offenses that were not part of this appeal, including one count of endangering and six counts of sexual assault relating to acts from 2010 involving another seventeen-year-old victim (Counts 19-25), two counts of witness tampering (Counts 10 and 17), and two counts of endangering the welfare of a child with respect to the witness tampering (Counts 11 and 18). Defendants moved to dismiss the sexual assault and endangerment charges involving conduct in Germany, asserting that the State lacked territorial jurisdiction to prosecute the offenses in New Jersey. The trial court denied the motions, focusing on N.J.S.A.2C:1-3(a)(1), which allowed for jurisdiction in New Jersey when "[e]ither the conduct which is an element of the offense or the result which is such an element occurs within this State". The court concluded that material elements of both offenses having supervisory or disciplinary power over a victim (sexual assault), and assuming the responsibility for the care of a child (endangerment) occurred in New Jersey and constitute conduct sufficient to establish territorial jurisdiction. Defendants appealed, and the Appellate Division affirmed substantially for the reasons set forth by the trial court. The issue this case presented for the Supreme Court's review centered on whether the State could prosecute offenses that occurred in Germany in a New Jersey courtroom. After review, the Court reversed the judgment of the Appellate Division and dismissed a number of counts in the indictment. The case proceeded on counts relating to witness tampering and a separate series of allegations of sexual assault against a victim in New Jersey. View "New Jersey v. Sumulikoski" on Justia Law

At issue in this appeal was the constitutionality of N.J.S.A. 2C:16-1(a)(3), a bias-crime statute that allows a jury to convict a defendant even when bias did not motivate the commission of the offense. Under the statute, a defendant may be convicted of bias intimidation if the victim reasonably believed that the defendant committed the offense on account of the victim's race. Unlike any other bias-crime statute in the country, N.J.S.A. 2C:16-1(a)(3) focuses on the victim's, not the defendant's, state of mind. Defendants David Pomianek, Jr. and Michael Dorazo, Jr., and Steven Brodie, Jr., worked for the Parks and Recreation Division of the Gloucester Township Department of Public Works. Defendants are Caucasian and worked as truck drivers. Brodie is African-American and worked as a laborer. The three men were assigned to work at an old garage used for storage by Public Works. In the garage was a sixteen-foot long and eight-foot wide steel storage cage, enclosed by a heavy chain-link fence on three sides and a cinder block wall on the fourth. The cage was secured by a sliding chain-link door with a padlock. A number of employees were horsing around in the building and wrestling in the cage. In a ruse, Dorazo approached Brodie and told him that their supervisor needed an item from the cage. Once inside the cage, Dorazo shut the cage door, locking Brodie inside. A number of Public Works employees began laughing, but Brodie found nothing funny about being locked in the cage. Brodie recalled defendant saying, "Oh, you see, you throw a banana in the cage and he goes right in," which triggered more laughter among the men. Brodie considered the remark to be racial in nature. From his perspective, the line about throwing the banana in there was like being called a monkey in a cage. Brodie admitted, however, that he never heard defendant call him a monkey. The cage door was unlocked after three to five minutes. Brodie felt humiliated and embarrassed. After his release, Dorazo was heard saying, "You all right, buddy? We were just joking around." Brodie replied, "Yeah, yeah, I'm fine." Defendant and Dorazo were charged in a sixteen-count indictment with two counts of second-degree official misconduct, twelve counts of fourth-degree bias intimidation, and two counts of third-degree hindering apprehension or prosecution. The hindering charges were later dismissed. The court denied defendant's pretrial motion to dismiss the bias-intimidation counts based on a constitutional challenge to the bias-intimidation statute. At the conclusion of the trial, the jury acquitted defendant of all counts alleging that he falsely imprisoned or harassed Brodie either with the purpose to intimidate him or knowing that his conduct would cause Brodie to be intimidated because of his race, color, national origin, or ethnicity. In addition, defendant was acquitted of the lesser-included offense of false imprisonment. Defendant, however, was found guilty of two fourth-degree bias-intimidation crimes, one for harassment by alarming conduct and the other for harassment by communication. The jury also convicted defendant of official misconduct based in part on the finding that he committed the crime of bias intimidation. Last, the jury convicted defendant of the petty disorderly persons offenses of harassment by alarming conduct and harassment by communication. The Appellate Division reversed the bias-intimidation conviction, concluding that a conviction based on the victim's perception and not on the defendant's biased intent would violate the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. In affirming in part, and reversing in part, the Appellate Court's judgment, the Supreme Court held that N.J.S.A. 2C:16-1(a)(3), due to its vagueness, violated the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. "In focusing on the victim's perception and not the defendant's intent, the statute does not give a defendant sufficient guidance or notice on how to conform to the law." View "New Jersey v. Pomianek" on Justia Law

The tragic accident that gave rise to this litigation occurred during the evening of August 9, 2008 in Willingboro Township. The accident occurred as the driver of the automobile Noah Pierre was turning left at an intersection controlled by a stop sign. Among the defendants named in plaintiffs' wrongful death and survival actions were the owner and lessee of a property located on a corner of the intersection where the accident occurred. Plaintiffs alleged that these defendants negligently maintained overgrown shrubbery on their property, blocking Pierre's view of oncoming traffic at the intersection. Pierre testified that shrubbery on the property initially obscured her view when she was stopped at the stop sign at the intersection, but that she edged forward, starting and stopping four times until her view of oncoming traffic was unimpeded. A passenger in Pierre's vehicle corroborated Pierre's testimony that when she turned left, she had an unobstructed view of approaching traffic. The record contained no testimony to the contrary. However, an engineering expert retained by plaintiffs opined that the overgrown shrubbery on the property next to the intersection was a proximate cause of the fatal collision. He acknowledged Pierre's testimony that she stopped four times before proceeding and that the shrubbery on the adjoining property did not obstruct her view, but contended that Pierre's account of the accident was mistaken. The trial court granted defendants motion to strike the expert's testimony as a net opinion lacking support in the record. The court then granted defendants motion for summary judgment dismissing plaintiffs' claims against the property owner and lessee. The Appellate Division vacated the trial court's order barring the expert's report and reversed the grant of summary judgment, holding that the expert's conclusion was sufficiently grounded in the record and that plaintiffs could elicit the expert's opinion disputing Pierre's testimony in the form of a hypothetical question at trial. Given the uncontradicted testimony of Pierre and her passenger that Pierre's view of oncoming traffic was unimpeded by the shrubbery on defendants property when she made her left turn, the Supreme Court held that the trial court properly barred the causation opinion of plaintiffs' expert and granted summary judgment. The expert's opinion that the defendant property owner and defendant lessee both had a duty to maintain the landscaping on their property so that it did not obstruct the view of drivers was properly substantiated and was therefore admissible under the New Jersey Rules of Evidence. However, his opinion on the issue of causation was a net opinion that was not only unsupported by the factual evidence, but directly contradicted that evidence. View "Townsend v. Pierre" on Justia Law

Plaintiff Augustine Badiali was injured when his motor vehicle was rear-ended by an uninsured motorist. Plaintiff filed a UM claim, which proceeded to arbitration and resulted in an award in plaintiff s favor. Plaintiff filed suit against his insurer, defendant New Jersey Manufacturers Insurance Group ( NJM ), after NJM rejected the arbitration award and refused to pay its share. The trial court confirmed the arbitration award in a summary action and found NJM liable for its share of the award. In a subsequent action, plaintiff asserted that NJM litigated in bad faith by advocating that its policy language allowed for a rejection of the arbitration award at issue. The trial court granted summary judgment in favor of NJM. The court agreed that the case was ripe for summary judgment although discovery had not been completed. The court was further persuaded that NJM s position was fairly debatable based on its policy language and on the existence of an unpublished Appellate Division decision involving nearly identical facts, in which NJM was also a party. The Appellate Division affirmed, holding that NJM s position was fairly debatable because it was supported by a prior, unpublished opinion of the court. Plaintiff was thereby barred from recovering counsel fees or any other consequential damages. Finding no reversible error in the appellate court's judgment, the Supreme Court affirmed. View "Badiali v. N.J. Mfg. Ins. Grp." on Justia Law

Plaintiff Kwabena Wadeer suffered injuries in a motor vehicle accident that occurred while he was attempting to avoid an unidentified vehicle. Plaintiff filed a UM claim against New Jersey Manufacturers Insurance Company (NJM), his insurer. The insurance policy provided $100,000 in UM and UIM coverage. NJM made no offers to attempt to settle plaintiff's UM claim and the parties proceeded to private arbitration pursuant to the terms of the policy. The panel determined that plaintiff was 30% liable for the accident, the phantom vehicle was 70% liable, and plaintiff was entitled to a net award of $87,500. NJM rejected the $87,500 arbitration award and demanded a trial. By letter, plaintiff's attorney acknowledged NJM s rejection of the arbitration award and notified NJM that he believed it was acting in bad faith by rejecting that award. Plaintiff submitted an Offer of Judgment to NJM in the amount of $95,000 and reiterated his belief that defendant's conduct was in bad faith. NJM rejected the offer and the case proceeded to trial. The jury determined that the phantom vehicle was 100% liable for the underlying accident and awarded plaintiff $210,000 for pain and suffering and $12,175 in lost wages. Plaintiff thereafter moved to enter judgment for the full amount of the verdict, notwithstanding the $100,000 policy limit, as well as for prejudgment interest on the verdict and attorneys fees. During argument on the motion, plaintiff's counsel raised the issue of bad faith, contending that defendant was on notice of the claim. In response, NJM argued that plaintiff failed to plead bad faith in his complaint. The trial judge entered an order reducing and molding the jury verdict to conform to the insurance policy limit of $100,000 and awarding plaintiff attorneys fees and prejudgment interest. In his accompanying statement of reasons, the trial judge found that NJM s actions did not constitute bad faith because NJM had fairly debatable reasons for denying the benefits of the policy. Plaintiff and NJM filed cross-appeals. Plaintiff contended the trial court should not have molded the verdict to the policy limits because NJM acted in bad faith. The Appellate Division affirmed the trial judge's modified jury verdict, but reversed the award of attorneys fees and expenses. Plaintiff then filed a separate complaint alleging that NJM breached its duty of good faith and fair dealing by failing to make a settlement offer to plaintiff and by failing to settle the claim in a timely manner. NJM moved for summary judgment, arguing that plaintiff's complaint was barred by the entire controversy doctrine, res judicata, and/or collateral estoppel. After review, the Supreme Court agreed that plaintiff's bad faith claim was barred in this action under the principle of res judicata because it was raised, fairly litigated, and determined by the trial court in the first litigation. View "Wadeer v. N.J. Mfrs. Ins. Co." on Justia Law

This case stemmed from a nine-year-old victim's allegation that her mother's boyfriend, defendant R.K., repeatedly molested her. No physical evidence of the alleged sexual assaults was presented. Trial turned on whether the jury believed the victim or defendant. Ultimately, defendant was convicted of endangering the welfare of a child and child abuse. The trial court permitted three different witnesses to testify regarding the same underlying allegation under the fresh-complaint doctrine. That testimony included details and graphic demonstrations, and improperly bolstered the victim's credibility. Defendant argued on appeal that the victim's mother and sister improperly bolstered her credibility by stating they believed her allegations, and that it was not in her character to lie. In addition, defendant argued that the trial court erred when it barred proposed testimony from a defense witness that defendant's girlfriend suspected he cheated on her and was planning to leave him as her testimony went to bias and was admissible. After review, the Supreme Court held that the errors raised in defendant's appeal denied defendant a fair trial. The Court reversed the Appellate Division judgment: admission of the fresh-complaint testimony, bolstering of the victim's credibility, and exclusion of bias testimony constituted reversible error. The case was remanded to the trial court for a new trial. View "New Jersey v. R.K." on Justia Law

Defendant John Tate pled guilty to the fourth-degree offense of abuse of his foster child "by engaging in the habitual use . . . in the hearing of [the] child, of profane, indecent or obscene language." The trial court accepted the guilty plea based solely on defendant's admission that he cursed in the child s presence in a way that would "debauch his morals" and that he used off-color language. The trial court denied defendant's motion to vacate his guilty plea based on an inadequate factual basis, and the Appellate Division affirmed. The Supreme Court reversed: during the brief plea colloquy, defendant was not asked to repeat the offending language or the frequency with which he used the language. The court did not assess whether defendant s conception of a curse word or off-color language was equivalent to the statutory language prohibited by N.J.S.A. 9:6-1(d). The court could not (based on the colloquy) determine that defendant admitted to committing the crime of child abuse. Defendant s guilty plea was vacated, his indictment was reinstated, and this matter was remanded to the trial court for further proceedings. View "New Jersey v. Tate" on Justia Law

Defendant Tahir Gregory was arrested and charged in a ten-count indictment with, among other things, possession of a controlled dangerous substance (heroin) with the intent to distribute within 1000 feet of a school. Defendant pled guilty to a violation of N.J.S.A.2C:35-7, which provided that "[a]ny person who . . . possess[es] with intent to distribute a controlled dangerous substance . . . within 1,000 feet of [any] school property. . ." was guilty of a crime. At his plea hearing, defendant admitted that he knowingly possessed heroin contained in individual, stamp-sized packages with specific markings while within 1000 feet of school property. He acknowledged initialing and signing the plea form, and admitted during his plea colloquy that he was entering his guilty plea knowingly and voluntarily. The nature of the offense section of the standard plea form initialed and signed by defendant lists the charge against defendant as "Poss CDS w/ intent School Zone." Nowhere on the form did it state intent to distribute. The trial court accepted defendant's plea of guilty and sentenced him to an extended term of eight years in prison with a forty-eight month parole disqualifier. Defendant appealed, contending, among other things, that he did not provide an adequate factual basis to sustain his guilty plea. The Appellate Division affirmed defendant s conviction. The Supreme Court, after its review, concluded that defendant indeed did not provide a factual basis sufficient to sustain his guilty plea because he did not admit to all of the elements of the crime or admit facts from which the court could conclude that all of the elements of the crime had been established. The judgment of the Appellate Division was reversed, the defendant's guilty plea was vacated, the indictment was reinstated, and the matter was remanded to the trial court. View "New Jersey v. Gregory" on Justia Law

Defendant placed three phone calls to N.C., then a 13-year-old boy. That same night, defendant sent four text messages to N.C. in which he expressed a desire to engage in sexual activity with the child. N.C. showed the text messages to his grandfather, who contacted the police. Defendant was subsequently indicted for second-degree child luring and third-degree endangering the welfare of a child. Defendant pled guilty to both counts, specifically admitting that he attempted to lure N.C. to engage in sexual relations with him. Defendant later moved to withdraw his guilty plea. The court denied the motion and sentenced him to concurrent, extended terms of ten years imprisonment, with a ten-year parole disqualifier, for luring and five years imprisonment, with a five-year parole disqualifier, for endangering the welfare of a child. Both terms were imposed pursuant to N.J.S.A.2C:43-6.4, which applied to individuals who commit an enumerated offense while serving parole supervision for life (PSL). At the time of defendant s offense, he was serving a special sentencing condition of community supervision for life (CSL) stemming from a 1998 conviction for aggravated sexual assault that was imposed pursuant to an earlier version of the statute. A 2003 amendment to the statute replaced all references to CSL with PSL. Defendant appealed, claiming that the trial court should have rejected his guilty plea to child luring because there was no evidence that he tried to entice N.C. to meet him at a particular place. He further claimed that the extended-term sentences were illegal because he was serving CSL, not PSL. In an unpublished opinion, the Appellate Division affirmed both the conviction and sentences, holding that the legislative history of the child luring statute did not require defendant to explicitly state the location where he planned to meet N.C. The panel further reasoned that the word-for-word substitution of parole for community suggested that the amendment was a matter of form and not substance. This issue this case presented for the Supreme Court's review centered on the sufficiency of the factual basis of defendant s guilty plea, in addition to the legality of the extended-term sentences imposed on defendant. The Court concluded that defendant's admissions during the plea colloquy, in combination with the text messages introduced at the hearing, established a sufficient factual basis to support his guilty plea to child luring. On the other hand, the imposed sentences were illegal. Defendant was subject to CSL at the time he committed both offenses. CSL and PSL are distinct special post-sentence supervisory schemes for certain sex offenders. The extended term authorized for those who commit statutorily designated offenses while serving the special sentencing condition of CSL does not preclude parole. The Court remanded the case for resentencing on both counts. View "New Jersey v. Perez" on Justia Law