Court Opinion

ID: 9692948
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 16:13:29.673487+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:19:38.316034
License: Public Domain

CLIFFORD, J.,
dissenting.
There is no fun in being the Court’s resident nitpicker. It isn’t pretty, but somebody has to do it, even at the risk of attracting the sobriquet of “hypertechnical” or something equally charming.
But this nit is worth picking. Look at what we have here: the Court not only reaches a result not contemplated by the *124appeal, it achieves a result not even allowed by our Rules because the issue the Court decides is not before us.
The issue is not, as the second sentence of the Court’s opinion declares, “whether [a fixed-term] employment contract, entered into by a local utilities authority, remains valid and enforceable following the dissolution of that authority and another local utilities authority and the establishment of a new municipal utilities authority created to perform the combined functions of the dissolved authorities.” Ante at 112. To be sure, that is the question presented by plaintiff’s complaint, and that is what the trial was about. As well, that is what the appeal to the Appellate Division involved. But that is not the narrow issue to which our review is restricted by the dissent below.
The appeal to this Court is permitted under the authority of Rule 2:2 — 1(a)(2), which provides in part that
[a]ppeals may be taken to the Supreme Court from final judgments as of right: * * * (2) in cases where, and with regard to those issues as to which, there is a dissent in the Appellate Division * * *. (Emphasis added.)
The plaintiff’s appeal and defendants’ cross-appeal are thus limited: they must focus only on the single issue raised by the dissent, namely, does the successor to a municipal corporation that has terminated a fixed-term contract of employment avoid liability for the contract by showing that the termination was economically justified? If, as the majority below concluded, the answer is “yes,” then the Court should affirm the judgment without thrashing around in the underbrush of legal issues not posed by the dissent below. If, on the other hand, the dissenter below has it right, we should modify the judgment to alter the terms of the remand.
So the question for me is not whether the Court’s scholarly exercise gets to the “right” place or no; it is rather whether the Court should have embarked on its journey in the first place. In my view it should not have done so, because neither party asked us to, none of the lawyers expects us to, none of the parties is prepared for this result on this appeal (how does Stone’s lawyer explain to him that he is out of court and out of *125a job when under the rules of the game the worst that should have happened to him was that he got sent back to the trial court for another shot at sustaining his claim?), and nobody who enjoys a passing acquaintance with proper procedure will be able to reconcile our winking at our own Rule in this case and then insisting on strict adherence in some other appeal.
Our Rules of procedure are not simply a minuet scored for lawyers to prance through on pain of losing the dance contest should they trip. Those Rules have a purpose, one of which is to assist in the processing of the increasing number and complexity of cases, including appeals in this Court, that we have experienced over the last couple of decades. See Cherry Hill Dodge, Inc. v. Chrysler Credit Corp., 194 N.J.Super. 282 (App.Div.1984) (citing Kushner v. Winterthur Swiss Inc. Co., 620 F.2d 404 (3rd Cir.1980)). So it is that we amended Rule 2:2-1(a), effective in 1979, to restrict an appeal as of right based on a dissent below to the issue posed by the dissent. A party wishing to raise an issue that was accorded unanimous decision below must proceed by way of petition for certification under Rule 2:12. See Brandenburg v. Brandenburg, 83 N.J. 198, 203-04 (1980). Had that route been followed here, we then would have been able to decide whether we should consider the question that the Court today gratuitously decides.
It is no answer — not for me, anyway — to say that my more industrious and astute colleagues have found the time and resources to do that which I refuse to do, namely, go beyond the issue before us in order to accommodate our own free-floating views of justice. I can muster up whatever fortitude is required to resist the Circean allure of that approach, for it is not inconceivable to me that the lawyers who have lived with this case actually know a lot more about it than we do, and they may have structured the appeal to this Court the way they did for reasons that are of no proper concern to us. We should take the appeal as it comes to us, not as we would wish to have it presented. In that connection I note that the defendants before us filed not only a notice of cross-appeal but a notice of *126petition for certification, but thereafter failed to file the petition, wherefore it was dismissed. I will assume that they know what they are doing with their case, but I will not assume that they should win hands down on an issue that they did not choose to pursue.
Nor is it any answer to suggest, as the Court does, ante at 115-17 n. 2, that a proper formulation of the issue on appeal when there is a dissent below is guided by the judgment of the Appellate Division. It is not. Our review is circumscribed not by the judgment below but by the issue that divides the Appellate Division. Besides, if it is the judgment that controls, then we should be considering only the alternatives of the Appellate Division majority’s judgment, which is to reverse the summary judgment for defendants and remand for further consideration of the “economic justification” issue, Stone v. Township of Old Bridge, 215 N.J.Super. 361, 372 (1987), and the dissenter’s proposed judgment, which would have permitted plaintiff to pursue his “valid claim” unencumbered by any defense of economic justification for non-assumption of his contract. Id. at 373.
Finally, it is no answer, again as the Court suggests, ante at 115-17 n. 2, that the parties have briefed an issue not properly before us. That they have not followed the Rules does not mean that this Court should demonstrate the same disrespect for its own procedural mandates. One might observe that the parties briefed as well the issue of counsel fees, not touched on by the dissent below. Correctly, the Court ignores that question.
Like Justice Frankfurter, I do not perceive procedure as “just folderol or noxious moss. Procedure — the fair, orderly and deliberative method by which claims are to be litigated — goes to the very substance of the law.” Cook v. Cook, 342 U.S. 126, 133, 72 S.Ct. 157, 161, 96 L.Ed. 146, 152 (1951) (Frankfurter, J., dissenting). Adhering to what I understand the correct procedure to be, and based on what is before us, I would affirm *127substantially for the reasons set forth in the majority opinion of the Appellate Division.
Justice STEIN joins in this dissent.
For reversal and reinstatement —Chief Justice WILENTZ, and Justices HANDLER, POLLOCK, O’HERN and GARIBALDI-5.
. For affirmance — Justices CLIFFORD and STEIN-2.