Source: https://www.wilsonelser.com/offices/20-new_jersey?view=publications
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 08:14:23+00:00

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On March 25, 2019, the New Jersey Legislature cancelled a planned vote on a bill that would have legalized recreational marijuana for adults 21 years and older. Governor Phil Murphy’s contingency plan for the vote’s cancellation includes adding between 30 and 50 licenses for those who cultivate medical marijuana and later expand licenses for manufacturers and dispensaries that sell it.
In the past, the benefits of basis step-up were outweighed by the reduction of estate tax that was accomplished by removing property from a taxable estate. Now it is possible that the very reverse may be true.
In New Jersey and several other jurisdictions, statutes of limitation and repose in construction defect litigation are hotly disputed. Although it appears that jurisdictions are expanding statutes of repose, defendants in construction defect litigation may be making headway related to other traditional defenses. The New Jersey Supreme Court has ruled that a current owner stands in the shoes of a prior owner for statute of limitations purposes, and has no right to revive what may have been a lapsed claim simply because of a change in ownership.
DACA Renewals in the Wake of the Federal Court Preliminary Injunction.
A new U.S. Department of Homeland Security regulation improves the ability of U.S. employers to hire and retain highly skilled foreign workers and increases the ability of those workers to pursue new employment opportunities upon losing their jobs.
“Retention of EB-1, EB-2, and EB-3 Immigrant Workers and Program Improvements Affecting High-Skilled Nonimmigrant Workers” – a final rule published by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services – is designed to improve employment-based, nonimmigrant and immigrant visa programs. Amended regulations will enable employers to retain high-skilled workers who are beneficiaries of approved immigrant visa petitions, but are not able to obtain permanent residency for 8-10 years due to crushing backlogs caused by per-country, annual limits on green cards. The new regulation will benefit workers from over-subscribed countries, namely India, China and the Philippines.
IRC § 673(c): An ING Bar or an ING Hurdle?
A recent ruling by the New Jersey Supreme Court will mean that defendant landowners will now have more difficulty in early dismissals of take-home chemical exposure claims filed by non-spouses. The defendant landowners will be barred from filing Motions to Dismiss at the start of the litigation since the question of liability to a non-spouse is no longer a question of law but a fact question for which discovery is needed.
Will the Ancient Document Exception to the Hearsay Rule become Ancient History?
Will the Ancient Document Exception to the Hearsay Rule become Ancient History? The proposed abrogation of the Federal Rule of Evidence regarding the “ancient documents” exception to the hearsay rule, if enacted, would be effective December 1, 2017. While enactment would have minimal or no effect on many areas of the law, it would profoundly affect other areas such as prosecution of sexual or child predators and war criminals. Additionally, it would have implications in the environmental and coverage arena where documents more than 20 years old are frequently used to establish liability and coverage.
The New Jersey Supreme Court has held that attorneys may be liable for counsel fees if they are found to have intentionally breached their fiduciary duty to non-clients. The strong dissenting opinion filed in this matter raised the issue of a “negligent” versus an “intentional” breach and the resulting impact on professional malpractice policies.
The Department of Homeland Security published a final rule on March 11, 2016, allowing foreign national students who receive advanced degrees in the United States in science, technology, engineering or mathematics to apply beginning on May 10, 2016, for a 24-month extension of their post-completion optional practical training. This 24-month extension replaces the current 17-month extension.
'Round Up the Usual Suspects' and Violate the NLRA?
In a recent decision, the New Jersey Appellate Division held that the presence of language in an employee handbook stating that nothing in the handbook was contractually binding against the employer meant that the employer could not enforce a mandatory arbitration procedure also included in the handbook. The court felt that the employer wanted to have the benefit of a contract binding the employee on the subject of arbitration but avoid a contract when other parts of the handbook were at issue.
A recent decision by the New Jersey Supreme Court voided an Appellate Division ruling that would have effectively decimated the right to nullify an insurance policy procured by fraud in the face of a statute or court rule mandating the need for liability insurance.
Now binding law in the Third Circuit, all denial letters must include the plan-imposed suit limitation deadline, if any. Failure to include the deadline will result in application of the most analogous limitations period imposed under state law, which in New Jersey is the six-year statute of limitations applicable to breach of contract actions.
The Sixth Circuit has determined that wrongful denial of employee benefits will not expose plan fiduciaries to equitable remedies – such as disgorgement of profits – where restoration of benefits is adequate to make the claimant whole. But disgorgement might still be available to redress separate and distinct injuries.
The companion decisions in two recent New Jersey Supreme Court cases are favorable to insurance companies on the standard for bad faith and the difficulties that policyholders have in proving bad faith in New Jersey under the “fairly debatable” standard. However, one of the cases puts forth the suggestion that the Civil Practice Rules Committee consider three significant rule changes that could have an adverse impact on auto insurers.
On January 26, 2015, the Supreme Court of New Jersey overturned two lower-court decisions and held that the six-year statute of limitations for damage to real property does not apply to Spill Act private contribution claims.
New Jersey’s Legislature has approved a bill that is expected to come before the Governor’s Office in November 2014. If enacted, the bill’s prohibition against the production or manufacture of personal care products containing microbeads would commence January 1, 2018. The measure prohibits the sale, offer for sale or promotion of these items on or after January 1, 2019. In addition, no person will be able to sell, offer for sale or offer for promotion over-the-counter drugs containing synthetic plastic microbeads in the state beginning January 1, 2020.
A recent holding by Maryland’s Court of Special Appeals reaffirms the principle previously set forth by the same court that, despite the alleged foreseeability of harm from defective replacement parts that are made or manufactured by others, an entity generally is liable only for harm caused by products that it manufactured or otherwise introduced into the stream of commerce.
The NJ Supreme Court is poised to open arguments surrounding a 2013 decision by the Appellate Division not only accepting a six-year statute of limitations for private contribution actions under the NJ Spill Act but also applying it retroactively. If upheld, parties that have been performing remediation activities for years may encounter hurdles in recovering all of their costs. Likewise, parties beginning to perform remediation activities may face time limitations for investigating and filing their claims.
The Supreme Court recently held that the Federal Superfund law does not preempt state statutes of repose, representing a victory for companies and landowners with legacy environmental liabilities in states with a statute of repose applicable to tort claims.
Following a recent finding by New Jersey’s Appellate Division, equipment manufacturers sued in New Jersey may now be subject to liability for failure to warn of asbestos in replacement component parts neither manufactured nor required by them years after their original sale. The court found it is reasonably foreseeable that component parts would be replaced regularly as part of routine maintenance.
The 2013 ESI Case Law Update recaps those ESI cases that will likely have the greatest impact on you, your business and how you prepare for and defend civil litigation.
Philadelphia Insurance Companies publishes article about why employed lawyers need insurance coverage by Thomas Quinn and Steven Young.
The U.S. Supreme Court declined to review a First Circuit Court of Appeals decision that seems at odds with the high court’s decision in Daubert, which required trial courts to serve as the gatekeepers of scientific expert testimony by assessing the reliability of such testimony before admitting it.
On June 21, 2011, the New Jersey Supreme Court again issued companion insurance coverage decisions that will have a profound impact upon the duty to defend under New Jersey law: Passaic Valley Sewerage Commissioners v. St. Paul Fire & Marine Insurance Company, 2011 N.J. LEXIS 686 (June 21, 2011) (PVSC) and Abouzaid v. Mansard Gardens Associates, LLC, 2011 N.J. LEXIS 684 (June 21, 2011) (Abouzaid).
Arizona employers were placed on alert as the U.S. Supreme Court, amid challenges from the business community, upheld an Arizona law that (1) mandates use of the federal E-Verify program and (2) uses language in the Legal Arizona Workers Act of 2007, which relies on an exception in the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act, to impose "the business death penalty" on employers who "employ, or recruit or refer for a fee for employment, unauthorized aliens."
Recently, the U.S. high court denied a request for review in Comer, et al. v. Murphy Oil U.S.A., et al. That denial, in essence, reinstated the District Court's dismissal of Comer. For all practical purposes, therefore, the Comer case is "dead," without the prospect of further appellate review.
A New Jersey appellate court looked to the language in an employer's liability policy in ordering an insurer to defend a workplace accident lawsuit. A worker fell in her company's parking lot and filed for workers' compensation. Barred by law from suing her employer directly, she sued the company in its capacity as a commercial tenant. Ambiguity in the wording of the employer's liability policy was the key factor in the court finding that the insurer must pay the company's defense costs.
This is the latest in a series of alerts on the federal government's efforts to curb greenhouse-gas emissions and on pending nuisance-based climate-change litigation.
On August 20, 2010, the New Jersey Appellate Division affirmed a multimillion-dollar take-home asbestos verdict against Exxon Mobil in its role as a premises owner in the case Anderson v. A.J. Friedman, 2010 N.J. Super. LEXIS 173 (App Div). The plaintiff, who worked at one of Exxon's facilities in New Jersey, had sued the company, claiming she developed the lung disease mesothelioma as a result of exposure to asbestos. There was evidence available that the plaintiff experienced dual, but separate, exposures to asbestos – as an employee of Exxon and/or as a spouse who laundered the work clothes of her husband, who also worked at Exxon.
Lending clarity to the increasing controversy surrounding Medicare's recovery rights, the New Jersey Appellate Division, in an unpublished decision, has indicated a clear intent that Medicare's recovery rights under the Medicare Secondary Payment Statute ("MSPS") are not preempted by state law, nor does the New Jersey collateral source statute permit allocation of an award to damages other than medical expenses.
In World Harvest Church, Inc. v. GuideOne Mutual Insurance Co., 2010 Ga. LEXIS 365 (May 3, 2010), the Supreme Court of Georgia answered certified questions from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit regarding the specificity required for an effective reservation of rights letter and whether an insured must show prejudice for an insurer to be estopped from denying coverage under Georgia law.
Where an insurer's disclaimer of coverage is not based on a policy exclusion, but rather on the basis that no coverage exists in the first instance, must the carrier still comply with the stringent notice requirements of New York Insurance Law § 3420(d)(2)?&nbsp; No, said the Second Circuit in its recent ruling in NGM Insurance Company v. Blakely Pumping, Inc.
This is the latest in a series of client advisories concerning climate change-related liability.
In two recent decisions, the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Second and Fifth Circuits have held that climate change lawsuits based on the common law of nuisance may proceed. Although the principal issues before the courts in each case were standing and justiciability, the courts' acceptance of the notion that the principles of nuisance law may give rise to liability for greenhouse gas emissions is telling, and may make it more likely that significant litigation on that basis will follow. The breadth of the courts' analyses further suggests that future claims may not be limited to major emitters, and that liability for damages allegedly resulting from climate change may follow.
A significant change has come to the process of environmental investigations and cleanups in New Jersey with the March 16, 2009, passage by the New Jersey State Senate and Assembly of a highly important piece of legislation – the Site Remediation Reform Act (S.1897/A.2962) (the "SRRA"). On May 7, 2009, Governor Corzine signed the SRRA into law. This new law will dramatically change the site remediation process in New Jersey, as well as the role of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection ("NJDEP") and environmental consultants.
Concern over spread of the H1N1 flu virus ("swine flu") in the workplace does not relieve employers of their obligations under employee protection laws, including the federal Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA). Indeed, as the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) recently noted, swine flu raises a number of potential disability discrimination issues of which employers must be aware.
On April 17, 2009, the Obama administration's Environmental Protection Agency ("EPA") issued two proposed findings regarding the following greenhouse gases ("GHGs"): carbon dioxide; methane; nitrous oxide; hydrofluorocarbons; perfluorocarbons; and sulfur hexafluoride.
In Evans v. Employee Benefit Plan, 2009 U.S. App. LEXIS 3426, 2209 WL 418628 (3d Cir. N.J. Feb. 20, 2009), the Third Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the New Jersey District Court's decision that the insurance carrier did not abuse its discretion in denying the claimant's long term disability claim. This decision should prove useful in cases in which a claimant under a life, health or disability policy seeks to use New Jersey's regulatory ban on so-called "discretionary" clauses in such policies.

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