Impact Advocacy

The welfare of children is paramount whether the parents are married, divorced, or never married. A plenary hearing is necessary for contested custody matters where the parents make materially conflicting representations of fact, regardless of court rule designating a non-dissolution matter as a summary proceeding. Before hearing, the parties should participate in an alternate dispute resolution process, and each furnishes a proposed parenting plan when they cannot resolve custody. Discovery should be allowed, absent cogent reasons for the denial. Finally, an investigative report should be prepared by court staff. The judge needs this information to make a considered decision.

When a mental health patient is admitted to a hospital on an emergent basis through the referral of a PESS (Psychiatric Emergency Screening Service), the provisions of the Charity Care regulations dealing with emergency room admissions apply.

A four-year statute of limitations applies to claims arising from a retail customer's use of a store-issued credit card — or one issued by a financial institution on a store's behalf — when the use of which is restricted to making purchases from the issuing retailer. If an action is filed after the expiration of this four-year period, the FDCPA requires the award of statutory damages and costs.

The court held that in a summary dispossess action, the burden to prove a rent increase is not unconscionable rests with the landlord. The court further ruled that, in considering whether a proposed rent increase is unconscionable, a court may consider i) the amount of proposed rent increase, ii) the landlord’s expenses and profitability, iii) how existing and proposed rents compare to those charged at similar rental properties in the area, iv) the relative bargaining power of the parties, and v) based on the judge’s general knowledge, whether the rent increase would “shock the conscience” of a reasonable person.

The court held that the DHS’s twelve-month limit on temporary rental assistance, which contained no fallback provision, was invalid, as it ran contrary to the legislature’s mandate of providing NJ citizens with adequate shelter.

The Supreme Court upheld trial court’s granting of defendant’s motion to vacate a judgment of possession on equitable grounds, pursuant to Rule 4:50-1.

Appellate court ruled that the public defender’s office had to split the payment of the fee for a court-appointed expert witness with Legal Services in a protective services action initiated by the New Jersey Division of Youth and Family Services, but that Legal Services was required to pay its half because it did not make it clear at the outset that it would not be responsible for paying expert witness fees on behalf of its client. N.J. Div. of Youth and Family Servs. v. E.B. (In re R.J.B.), 137 N.J. 180 (1994)The Court held that the lower court had not abused its discretion in directing both the public defender and Legal Services to split the cost of the fee for a court-appointed expert witness in a protective services action instituted by the New Jersey Division of Youth and Family Service.

Department of Human Services was required to determine a standard of need for the state's welfare recipients.

The court invalidated a DHS regulation that terminated Emergency Assistance to the needy after five months because there were no mechanisms in place to provide adequate shelter for recipients after the end of the five-month period. (The court’s decision to invalidate the regulation was overturned by the New Jersey Supreme Court, the following year, in Williams v. Department of Human Services, 116 N.J. 102 (1989), wherein the Court held that the five-month termination regulation could remain valid, under the condition that concrete plans were developed to allocate resources to make reasonably certain that individuals whose emergency assistance was terminated by the regulation in question would be able to find adequate shelter and, eventually, housing.)

The appellate division upheld the lower court’s decision that the Anti-Eviction Act did not bar eviction of tenants on grounds of lease expiration, because the premises were a homestead farm and thus were not being rented solely for appellant’s residential purposes.

The court held that a mother’s proof that her five children were receiving SSI benefits was insufficient to meet her burden of showing that her children were independent under NJ state welfare law, resulting in termination of Medicaid benefits.

After the N.J. Court Rule governing civil commitment hearings had been revised to the Court’s satisfaction, and because the appellant in the original case was no longer under involuntary commitment, the Court held the appellant’s case to be moot and dismissed the matter.