Two decisions of the Supreme Court, coming six months apart, first expanded and then narrowed a local government’s use of its power of eminent domain. These decisions will have a profound effect on development and redevelopment in New Jersey for the foreseeable future.
In a somewhat eclectic group of decisions affecting the local government practitioner, the Court found definitively that public meetings could be videotaped and that certain portions of the PNC Bank Arts Center could be subject to local taxation. The Court declared the definitive demise of the Fireman’s Rule in New Jersey and found that the theory of progressive discipline did not preclude the termination of an employee for a single incident. While giving attorneys representing subordinate municipal boards more leeway in participating in front of the municipalities of which their boards and agencies are a part, the Court on the other hand clarified that attorneys previously working for the state or a state agency had to comply with the more stringent conflicts of interest law applicable to state employees rather than the more liberal Rules of Professional Conduct related to the topic. The Court rounded out its cases by dealing with other disciplinary issues, applicability of the Conscientious Employees Protection Act, the rules regarding frivolous litigation in respect to a municipality, conflicts of interest in a Faulkner Act municipality and, finally, the limits of a municipality’s ability to recover for generic toxic tort claims. It was a term of contrasting decisions which defied predictability and illustrated that while legal doctrines are universally applicable, the results of that application always depend on the unique factual circumstances of each case.
