New Jersey Litigation to Watch In 2021
As voter approval of recreational marijuana and the COVID-19 pandemic competed for New Jersey headlines in 2020, cannabis and the coronavirus likewise drove New Jersey’s litigation highlights for the year, raising novel questions that will chart new courses in the areas of civil rights for businesses, protections and obligations in the workplace, and the scope of insurance and benefits coverage.
Judicial security also marked a reckoning in the Garden State after an avowed anti-feminist lawyer murdered the son of a federal judge and gravely injured her husband, a tragedy rehashed four months later when the life of another federal judge was threatened by a disgruntled litigant who is now behind bars.
Here are six New Jersey cases to watch in 2021.
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Judicial Security Amid Fatal Shooting Aftermath
The legal industry was still reeling from the fatal shooting of the son of U.S. District Judge Esther Salas by a disgruntled attorney in June when a New Jersey man angered by the courts sent threatening communications to another jurist in October.
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The Kaetz case comes as both federal and state lawmakers have passed or are weighing judicial security legislation in the wake of the shooting at Judge Salas’ home. However, Blank Rome LLP partner Stephen M. Orlofsky doesn’t think the heightened concern over judicial security will guarantee that Kaetz will get the harshest sentence.
A former New Jersey federal judge who once received a written threat from a disgruntled litigant, Orlofsky noted how the Kaetz case was moved to the Western District of Pennsylvania in order to prevent a Garden State court from having to preside over a case involving a threat to one of its own judges.
It’s a “human system,” Orlofsky said about the importance of bringing in a judge from a different district.
“I wouldn’t assume he’s going to get the maximum. You have to be fair,” Orlofsky said.
“New Jersey Litigation To Watch In 2021,” by Jeannie O’Sullivan was published in Law360 on January 3, 2021.