Keeping it Classy:
Also, another case that upholds the principle that being an intransigent pain in the butt makes you impervious to undue influence.
From the Right Result Wrong Reasoning department:
Before diving headfirst into the humor, a quick review of probate law. Because nothing helps a joke along like a couple paragraphs about how the legal system handles arguments over dead people's money.
Undue influence is a thing because Sometimes people create a will that they don't really want. For example, they make make a will because their caretaker pressures them to write a will in favor of the caretaker. Undue influence requires (1) a confidential relationship, and (2) suspicious circumstances. A confidential relationship can be shown by the person depending on the caretaker while being isolated with them. Suspicious circumstances is more nebulous, and is, broadly speaking, anything that makes the trial court go, "Dun, dun, dun!"
With that in mind, let's look at this case: Decedent (legalese for "the dead guy") married a second wife in 1990. When he died in 2016, he had written a series of recent wills that ended up giving most of his assets to his second wife, who (reading in between the lines) was also his caretaker.
However, there was voluminous evidence that Decedent knew what he was doing each time he changed his will and that it was his own free choice. (Holy crap, there was evidence: Even the summary was long. Defendant's attorney did a good job here.)
This brings us to the trial court's analysis of undue influence, which, for those of you inclined towards sleep right how, is the humorous part:
The judge explained "[n]one of the evidence presented to the [c]ourt demonstrates that the character of the relationship between Stuart and Amelia was any different than one would expect from any other marriage of some period of time–this was over [twenty] years[.]" The judge found "the actions between Stuart and Amelia, most especially over the last four or five years of the relationship [prior to] Stuart's death, just evidences to the [c]ourt a natural [marital] relationship. The actions taken by Amelia did not demonstrate to the [c]ourt any confidential relationship."
[Emphasis added.]
Hold up folks! She was his caretaker! She wheeled him around in his old man wheelchair! If he ever drooled, she wiped his old man drool! Those Venn diagrams ('wife' and 'confidential relationship') frequently overlap!
So now you can see why the plaintiff appealed this case. There was obviously a confidential relationship!
But you can also see why the Appellate Division responded with, 'Meh, affirmed,' rather than correct the trial court's reasoning: The trial court's point is clear in context.
From the Aren't Banks Supposed to Make Money department:
While a foreclosure is pending, the deadbeat owner signs a rent agreement with an option to purchase. Renter eventually tries to exercise the option at $437,500 and $500,000. Bank ignores him and sells the house for $370,000.
Family consists of mother, father, and 2 kids. Parents are separated. Mom has a DUI, so Dad drives the family to a holiday gathering at Mom's relatives' home on Christmas day.
Mom has several drinks, and they leave around 10:30 PM with the kids in the back seat. Mom gives Dad driving directions, but he makes some wrong turns so he switches on his GPS. Bad move. She hits him in the face. On the Turnpike by now, Dad pulls over to the shoulder.
Mom decides to jump off a bridge, literally, and rushes from the car to try to throw herself off an overpass. Fortunately, she gets stuck on the 3 1/2 foot wall. (Remember, she had several drinks.)
Dad goes after her, tries sweet reason, and, when that doesn't work, bear hugs her and drags her back to the car, at which point she gathers her things that fell on the ground during her hasty exit.
Then she decides to run again, this time to the Turnpike median. Dad gives chase again and drags Mom, who is not resisting, back to the car. Dad is almost hit by an oncoming car and turned into roadkill.
They drive off, Mom hits Dad 4 more times, Dad unsuccessfully tries to call 911 more than once, and Dad drives to a police station rather than the family home.
All in all a successful Christmas!
In which the New Jersey Supreme Court holds that even an idiot government employee* should know that the tax collector can't tell someone 'I don't want your filthy money'.
* The standard for denying qualified immunity is whether every government employee should know the right at issue is clearly established (even the stupid ones).
Mixed martial art (MMA) fighter takes a dietary supplement, which totally does not have any banned ingredients. Except it does. And he flunks a drug test and gets disciplined. He sues the sketchy dietary supplement company, which doesn't answer the complaint. He eventually gets a default judgment for $27 million.
OK, enforcement time. After the defendant was held in contempt for failing to comply with post-judgment discovery, the CEO, Hankin, deigned to talk about settlement in exchange for a pause in enforcement:
Thereafter, Hankin initiated a number of unprofessional email communications with plaintiff's counsel and in a February 19, 2020 email insinuated that a female associate employed at the firm, who was not working on the matter, fly across the country, meet him for dinner, and discuss a potential settlement of the matter.
Pro tip: Do not do this, if for no other reason than:
Thereafter, plaintiff's counsel declined to engage in any further communication with Hankin following his February 19, 2020 email.
Despite this, the opinion was a qualified win for the defendant: The Appellate Division knocked $6 million off the value of the judgment, and remanded for the trial court to determine whether to remove another $9 million!
In 2015, a sex offender subject to parole for life applied to move back to Poland. The Parole Board didn't have a procedure for this, leading to a marvelous legal quagmire. Eventually, the case landed on the lap of the New Jersey Supreme Court because the State was insisting that sex offenders don't get to relocate internationally.
But it turned out that the Parole Board had promulgated regulations to deal with the situation in 2020. (Yes, it only took 5 years.)
But the State didn't bother to tell the New Jersey Supreme Court about the new regulations. Alas, that task fell to our long-suffering sex offender. As the New Jersey Supreme Court stated:
We learned of the existence of that Policy only through the happenstance of petitioner’s unearthing of it during the pendency of this appeal.
This happened "[i]mmediately prior to oral argument". The State, keeping it classy, immediately changed its argument to say that the Parole Board's regulations were beyond the scope of the Parole Board's authority.
The New Jersey Supreme Court's response was, "Ha, ha, guys, but you are wasting our time. Seriously." Though, naturally, because they have to use the vernacular of judicial opinions, it was couched in phrases like:
The argument that the Attorney General advances at this stage of this appeal--on behalf of an agency that determined to adopt the Policy--is unusual.
