On February 5th the New Jersey Senate gave final legislative approval to a bill that would give some convicted drunken drivers the option of having ignition interlock devices installed in their cars as an alternative to license revocation. State law now requires installation of the devices for repeat offenders and first-time offenders with a BAC (Blood Alcohol Concentration) of...
Read MoreThroughout the State of New Jersey, many people elect to rent an apartment for an array of reasons including location and convenience. Unfortunately, in some instances the landlord/tenant relationship may result in court appearances. A class-action lawsuit has been brought against AvalonBay Communities over the January 21st fire that destroyed a 408-unit luxury apartment building in Edgewater New Jersey,...
Read MoreMany people do not know where to begin when contemplating divorcing their spouse or dissolving their civil union partnership. The grounds for Divorce in New Jersey can be based on, among other causes, adultery, imprisonment, or most commonly, irreconcilable differences. However, the New Jersey statute stating the grounds for dissolution of Civil Unions does not include irreconcilable differences. The...
Read MoreIn some instances a New Jersey Superior Court Judge will “impute” or assign an income to a party in order to calculate such things as child support and/or alimony. The Judge, however, must explain/justify the reason(s) why he/she imputed the amount in question to that individual. In terms of child support, pursuant to the New Jersey Court Rules, a...
Read MoreThe New Jersey Supreme Court has ruled that drunken drivers convicted of multiple offenses may use a ‘step-down’ provision in the state’s drunken driving statute more than once, provided that at least 10 years have elapsed between the most recent offense and the prior one. The current New Jersey drunk driving statute [N.J.S.A. 39:40-50] states in part that if...
Read MoreCar services such as Uber and Lyft, which connect drivers and passengers via a web application, have come a step closer to being regulated after a New Jersey legislative committee passed a bill aiming to set minimum insurance standards and impose other strictures. One of the concerns at the forefront is the insurance coverage issue involving passengers in these...
Read MoreThe New Jersey Supreme Court is considering whether to retroactively apply a 2013 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court that said police generally must get a search warrant before obtaining blood samples or demanding urine samples from suspected intoxicated drivers. The Court is set to determine if past police practices in the state, where warrants were rarely obtained, violated...
Read MoreChanging a tire on major roadways such as the Garden State Parkway and New Jersey Turnpike can be extremely dangerous. In Torres Pena v. Gonzalez a motorist was struck while in the process of changing a flat tire on the New Jersey Turnpike by another who allegedly left the scene and was paid a $3.25 million settlement. A flat...
Read MoreIt has happened to many people; you get pulled over on the parkway, turnpike or some local road and an officer requests that you submit to a breathe-test for a possible DWI. Currently in New Jersey a refusal to submit to a breathe-test can result in a license suspension for not less than seven months or more than one...
Read MoreNew Jersey lawmakers are contemplating enacting legislation that would limit the access to the information from event data recorders installed in automobiles that track speed, location, time of use and the number of people inside an automobile. Privacy concerns are at the forefront of this discussion. The proposed legislation would make the information on the automobile’s event data recorder...
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