Category: Business Law

Cohen v. Chase Bank, N.A.

ARBITRATION; CLASS ACTIONS — New Jersey will honor other state’s laws upholding an arbitration provision in a credit card agreement if there is a proper choice of law provision is in a credit card agreement, but will excise a class action waiver from the agreement even though not invalidating the entire agreement by reason of the purported class action waiver.

• Opinion Date: January 20, 2010

Cooper v. Barnickel Enterprises, Inc.

WORKERS COMPENSATION — Off-premises employees enjoy the same ability to deal with certain basic needs enjoyed by on-premises employees such as coffee and lunch breaks and if it is reasonable for an employee to travel a short distance to enjoy a coffee break and then the employee is injured during that travel, such injury is compensable under the Workers Compensation Act.

• Opinion Date: January 13, 2010

Fox v. Drozd

ATTORNEYS FEES — An attorney’s bill for services must be reasonable both as to the hourly rate and as to the services performed, and the practice of estimating billable hours long after the fact calls into question the validity of an attorney’s bill.

• Opinion Date: January 13, 2010

Asch Webhosting, Inc. v. Adelphia Business Solutions Investment, LLC

CONTRACTS; EXCULPATION — Exculpatory clauses in private contracts are generally sustained so long as they do not adversely affect the public interest, if the exculpated party is not otherwise under a legal duty to perform, and the contract does not grow out of unequal bargaining power or be otherwise unconscionable.

• Opinion Date: January 25, 2010

Triffin v. Automatic Data Processing, Inc.

FRAUD — Just because one party may not be liable to the other on the grounds of fraud because the second party may not have relied on the statements of the first party, this does not mean that if the statements are made in court, the party making the statements might not be liable for a “fraud upon the court.”

• Opinion Date: January 11, 2010

Brock Farms, Inc. v. Marrazzo

CORPORATIONS; SHAREHOLDERS; PERSONAL LIABILITY — When a contract states that one party is an individual trading as a company, but there is no sign that the company is a corporation, and no subsequent documents delivered to the other party indicate that the company is a corporation, the individual trading as such a company may be personally liable for the debts incurred in connection with the contract.

• Opinion Date: January 13, 2010

Stryker Spine v. Surgical Orthomedics, Inc.

NON-COMPETITION; INJUNCTIONS — Where a party violates a non-competition agreement, but the protected party allows a long period of competitive conduct before suing, the otherwise protected party may lose the right to obtain injunctive relief while retaining the right to seek damages.

• Opinion Date: October 19, 2009

Estate of Cohen v. Booth Computers

PARTNERSHIPS; BUY-SELL — A partnership agreement need not use any commonly understood meaning for the term “net worth” and can give that term the meaning that the partners choose to use and, unless a court’s conscience has been shocked, a court will not write a fairer buy-out provision for the partners.

• Opinion Date: August 4, 2009

Godfrey v. Martin

ARBITRATION; UNIFORM ARBITRATION ACT — New Jersey’s version of the Uniform Arbitration Act mandates that a court grant a stay of arbitration rather than a dismissal in a judicial proceeding.

• Opinion Date: December 17, 2009

IDT Telecom, Inc. v. CVT Prepaid Solutions, Inc.

CONSUMER FRAUD ACT —Competitors do not have standing to assert claims under the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act because they are not consumers as defined by the Act, and only consumers have standing to sue under the Act.

• Opinion Date: December 28, 2009